Chiral Quantum Optics in the Bulk of Photonic Quantum Hall Systems

• Published in: PRX quantum Vol. 4; no. 3; p. 030306
• Main Authors: De Bernardis, Daniele, Piccioli, Francesco S., Rabl, Peter, Carusotto, Iacopo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Physical Society 01.07.2023
• ISSN: 2691-3399; 2691-3399
• DOI: 10.1103/PRXQuantum.4.030306

We study light-matter interactions in the bulk of a two-dimensional photonic lattice system, where photons are subject to the combined effect of a synthetic magnetic field and an orthogonal synthetic electric field. In this configuration, chiral waveguide modes appear in the bulk region of the lattice, in direct analogy to transverse Hall currents in electronic systems. By evaluating the non-Markovian dynamics of emitters that are coupled to those modes, we identify critical coupling conditions, under which the shape of the spontaneously emitted photons becomes almost fully symmetric. Combined with a directional, dispersionless propagation, this property enables a complete reabsorption of the photon by another distant emitter, without relying on any time-dependent control. We show that this mechanism can be generalized to arbitrary in-plane synthetic potentials, thereby enabling flexible realizations of reconfigurable networks of quantum emitters with arbitrary chiral connectivity.