Dissipation induced Tonks-Girardeau gas of photons

Abstract

A scheme for the generation of a Tonks-Girardeau gas of photons with purely dissipative interaction is described. We put forward a master equation approach for the description of stationary light in atomic four-level media and show that, under suitable conditions, two particle decays are the dominant photon loss mechanism. These dissipative two-photon losses increase the interaction strength by at least one order of magnitude as compared to dispersive two-photon processes and can drive the photons into the Tonks-Girardeau regime. Different scenarios for the observation of fermionic correlations between photons in the Tonks-Girardeau gas regime are discussed.