Michael Fleischauer Abstract

Michael Fleischauer

"Single- and many-body physics of slow light polaritons"

When light interacts with coherently driven three-level quantum systems under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) [1], composite particles, called dark-state polaritons (DSP) [2] are formed which behave as massive objects with variable mass. They are the basis of slow, stored and stationary light. I will introduce the concept of dark-state and stationary-light polaritons and explain how to create scalar and gauge potentials (effective magnetic fields). I will remark on generalizations to multi-component polaritons which behave as spinor-like objects obeying a Dirac dynamics. In the latter case the possibility to manipulate the mass including its sign allows for the experimental study of unusual localization phenomena in models such as the random-mass Dirac model [3]. Interactions mediated by resonant nonlinear optical processes, atom-atom collissions or Rydberg interactions can lead to strongly correlated polariton gases.

[1] M. Fleischhauer, A. Imamoglu, J.P. Marangos, Rev. Mod. Phys. 77, 633 (2005) [2] M. Fleischhauer, M.D. Lukin, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 5094 (2000) [3] R.G. Unanyan, et al. arxiv 1005.3429