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Two interacting Rydberg atoms coupled to a waveguide realize a giant-atom platform that exhibits the controllable (phase-dependent) chirality where the direction of nonreciprocal photon scattering can be switched on demand, e.g., by the geometrical tuning of an external driving field. At variance with previous chiral setups, the simplified approach of our proposed platform arises from an optical implementation of the local phase difference between two coupling points of the Rydberg giant atom. Furthermore, employing two or more driving fields, this platform could also be used as a frequency converter with its efficiency exhibiting a strong asymmetry and being significantly enhanced via the chiral couplings. Our results suggest an extendable giant-atom platform that is both innovative and promising for chiral quantum optics and tunable frequency conversion in the optical domain.

Giant atoms are attracting interest as an emerging paradigm in the quantum optics of engineered waveguides. Here we propose to realize a synthetic giant atom working in the optical regime starting from a pair of interacting Rydberg atoms driven by a coherent field and coupled to a photonic crystal waveguide. Giant-atom effects can be observed as a phase-dependent decay of the double Rydberg excitation during the initial evolution of this atomic pair while (internal) atomic entanglement is exhibited at later times. Such an intriguing entanglement onset occurs in the presence of intrinsic atomic decay toward non-guided vacuum modes and is accompanied by an anti-bunching correlation of the emitted photons. Our findings may be relevant to quantum information processing, besides broadening the giant-atom waveguide physics with optically driven natural atoms., Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures

Quantum transport in a class of nonlinear extensions of the Rudner-Levitov model is numerically studied in this paper. We show that the quantization of the mean displacement, which embodies the quantum coherence and the topological characteristics of the model, is markedly modified by nonlinearities. Peculiar effects such as a "trivial-nontrivial" transition and unidirectional long-range quantum transport are observed. These phenomena can be understood on the basis of the dynamic behavior of the effective hopping terms, which are time and position dependent, containing contributions of both the linear and nonlinear couplings.d nonlinear couplings., Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures

We propose a model for realizing frequency-dependent spatial variations of the probe susceptibility in a cold atomic sample. It is found that the usual Kramers-Kronig (KK) relation between real and imaginary parts of the probe susceptibility in the frequency domain can be mapped into the space domain as a far detuned control field of intensity linearly varied in space is used. This non-Hermitian medium exhibits then a unidirectional reflectionless frequency band for probe photons incident from either the left or the right sample end. It is of special interest that we can tune the frequency band as well as choose the direction corresponding to the vanishing reflectivity by changing, respectively, the control field intensity and frequency. The nonzero reflectivity from the other direction is typically small for realistic atomic densities, but can be largely enhanced by incorporating the Bragg scattering into the spatial KK relation so as to achieve a high reflectivity contrast.

We study the collective dynamics of a clean Floquet system of cold atoms, numerically simulating two realistic set-ups based on a regular chain of interacting Rydberg atoms driven by laser fields. In both cases, the population evolution and its Fourier spectrum display clear signatures of a discrete time crystal (DTC), exhibiting the appearance of a robust subharmonic oscillation which persists on a time scale increasing with the chain size, within a certain range of control parameters. We also characterize how the DTC stability is affected by dissipative processes, typically present in this atomic system even though the Rydberg state is very long lived.

Reciprocity is fundamental to light transport and is a concept that holds also in rather complex systems. Yet, reciprocity can be switched off even in linear, isotropic and passive media by setting the material structure into motion. In highly dispersive multilayers this leads to a fairly large forward-backward asymmetry in the pulse transmission. Moreover, in multilevel systems, this transport phenomenon can be all-optically enhanced. For atomic multilayer structures made of three-level cold Rubidium 87 atoms, for instance, forward-backward transmission contrast around 95 per cent can be obtained already at atomic speeds in the meter per second range. The scheme we illustrate may open up avenues for optical isolation that were not previously accessible., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

A series of thin layers of alternating refractive index is known to make a good optical mirror over certain bands of frequency. Such a device - often termed the Bragg reflector - is usually introduced to students within the first years of an undergraduate degree, often in isolation from other parts of the course. Here we show that the basic physics of wave propagation through a stratified medium can be used to illustrate some more modern developments in optics as well as quantum physics; from transfer matrix techniques, to the optical properties of cold trapped atoms, optomechanical cooling, and a simple example of a system exhibiting an appreciable level of optical non-reciprocity., Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures

We propose a quantum memory for a single-photon wave packet in a superposition of two different colors, i.e., two different frequency components, using the electromagnetically induced transparency technique in a double-{\Lambda} system. We examine a specific configuration in which the two frequency components are able to exchange energy through a four-wave mixing process as they propagate, so the state of the incident photon is recovered periodically at certain positions in the medium. We investigate the propagation dynamics as a function of the relative phase between the coupling beams and the input single-photon frequency components. Moreover, by considering time-dependent coupling beams, we numerically simulate the storage and retrieval of a two-frequency-component single-photon qubit., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures

A general theory of optical forces on moving bodies is here developed in terms of generalized/4x4 transfer and scattering matrices. Results are presented for a planar dielectric multilayer of arbitrary refractive index placed in an otherwise empty space and moving parallel and perpendicular to the slab-vacuum interface. In both regimes of motion the resulting force comprises lateral and normal velocity-dependent components which may depend in a subtle way on the Doppler effect and TE-TM polarization mixing. For lateral displacements in particular, polarization mixing, which is here interpreted as an effective magneto-electric effect due to the reduced symmetry induced by the motion of the slab, gives rise to a velocity dependent force contribution that is sensitive to the phase difference between the two polarization amplitudes. This term gives rise to a rather peculiar optical response on the moving body and specific caseses are illustrated for incident radiation of arbitrarily directed linear polarization. The additional force due to polarization mixing may cancel to first order in V/c with the first order Doppler contribution yielding an overall vanishing of the velocity-dependent component of the force on the body. The above findings bare some relevance to modern developments of nano-optomechanics as well as to the problem of a frictional component to the Casimir force., Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures

The cross-Kerr effect is studied for two pulses propagating in an atomic medium in a tripod configuration, dressed by a strong standing wave coupling beam. Nonlinear phase shifts for both transmitted and reflected beams are calculated taking into account the redistribution of the population among the atomic levels which allows one to study the phase shifts in a wide range of pulse detunings. The influence of other parameters, e.g., the intensity of the control field and the relaxation rates, on the cross-Kerr effect is also examined in detail., Comment: 6 figures

We theoretically study the effect of ultraslow group velocities on the emission of Vavilov-Cherenkov radiation in a coherently driven medium. We show that in this case the aperture of the group cone on which the intensity of the radiation peaks is much smaller than that of the usual wave cone associated with the Cherenkov coherence condition. We show that such a singular behaviour may be observed in a coherently driven ultracold atomic gas., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures