A stationary Rydberg polariton

Abstract

We propose a novel scheme for coupling a Rydberg state to a stationary light polariton, based on a dual-V level scheme. We investigate the properties of the resulting stationary Rydberg polariton, and show that its form and its quadratic dispersion relation closely resemble that of the stationary light polariton of the underlying dual-V scheme. We consider the influence of a Rydberg impurity on the system and find strong interaction-induced absorption of the involved probe field. The proposed scheme for a stationary Rydberg polariton might find applications for realizing interacting polaritons with increased interaction time.