Collective Interactions in an Array of Atoms Coupled to a Nanophotonic Waveguide

Abstract

A lattice of trapped atoms strongly coupled to a one-dimensional nanophotonic waveguide is investigated in exploiting the concept of polariton as the system natural eigenstate. We apply a bosonization procedure, which was presented separately by P. W. Anderson and V. M. Agranovich, to transform excitation spin-half operators into interacting bosons, and which shown here to confirm the hard-core boson model. We derive polariton-polariton kinematic interactions and study them by solving the scattering problem. In using the excitation-photon detuning as a control parameter, we examine the regime in which polaritons behave as weakly interacting photons, and propose the system for realizing superfluidity of photons. We implement the kinematic interaction as a mechanism for nonlinear optical processes that provide an observation tool for the system properties, e.g. the interaction strength produces a blue shift in pump-probe experiments.