Single-photon-level light storage with distributed Rydberg excitations in cold atoms

• Published in: Frontiers of physics Vol. 17; no. 2; p. 22502
• Main Authors: Zhang, Hanxiao, Wu, Jinhui, Artoni, M., Rocca, G. C. La
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Higher Education Press 01.04.2022; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Astronomy; Astrophysics and Cosmology; Atomic; Atoms & subatomic particles; Cold atoms; cold Rydberg atom; Condensed Matter Physics; distributed Rydberg excitation; Excitation; few-photons light storage; improved superatom model; Molecular; Optical and Plasma Physics; Particle and Nuclear Physics; Photons; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Polaritons; Research Article; Storage; Trailing edges; distributed Rydberg excitation; few-photons light storage; improved superatom model; cold Rydberg atom
• ISSN: 2095-0462; 2095-0470
• DOI: 10.1007/s11467-021-1105-6

We present an improved version of the superatom (SA) model to examine the slow-light dynamics of a few-photons signal field in cold Rydberg atoms with van der Waals (vdW) interactions. A main feature of this version is that it promises consistent estimations on total Rydberg excitations based on dynamic equations of SAs or atoms. We consider two specific cases in which the incident signal field contains more photons with a smaller detuning or less photons with a larger detuning so as to realize the single-photon-level light storage. It is found that vdW interactions play a significant role even for the slow-light dynamics of a single-photon signal field as distributed Rydberg excitations are inevitable in the picture of dark-state polariton. Moreover, the stored (retrieved) signal field exhibits a clearly asymmetric (more symmetric) profile because its leading and trailing edges undergo different (identical) traveling journeys, and higher storage/retrieval efficiencies with well preserved profiles apply only to weaker and well detuned signal fields. These findings are crucial to understand the nontrivial interplay of single-photon-level light storage and distributed Rydberg excitations.