Quantum optical lattices for emergent many-body phases of ultracold atoms

Abstract

Confining ultracold gases in cavities creates a paradigm of quantum trapping potentials. We show that this allows to bridge models with global collective and short-range interactions as novel quantum phases possess properties of both. Some phases appear solely due to quantum light-matter correlations. Due to global, but spatially structured, interaction, the competition between quantum matter and light waves leads to multimode structures even in single-mode cavities, including delocalized dimers of matter-field coherences (bonds), beyond density orders as supersolids and density waves.