Exploring the Lowest Landau Level with Cavity Rydberg Polaritons*

The Lowest Landau Level (LLL) is the backdrop of the Quantum Hall (QH) effect and exhibits an unintuitive quantum geometry and highly correlated, topologically ordered ground states. Initial progress towards realizing fractional QH states has been demonstrated with our realization of a two-photon Laughlin state [1], of a two-atom Laughlin state in an optical lattice [2], and recently using microwaves [3], stimulating the quest to prepare bigger systems where true many-body properties, like exotic anyonic excitations, are accessible. Our experimental platform hybridizes photons in a degenerate twisted optical cavity with atomic Rydberg excitations to create a system of itinerant, strongly interacting particles in an artificial gauge field. We will present first results probing chiral dynamics in the LLL using a mesoscopic number of degenerate cavity modes. Enabled by a new spatially resolved detection method we probe temporal dynamics in the LLL from the weakly into the strongly interacting regime. With increasing Rydberg interaction strength, we can access first precursor states in the FQHE hierarchy on the way to larger Quantum Hall states. 

 

[1] Logan W Clark, Nathan Schine, Claire Baum, Ningyuan Jia and Jonathan Simon, "Observation of Laughlin states made of light" Nature 582, 41-45, (2020)

[2] Léonard, J., Kim, S., Kwan, J. et al. Realization of a fractional quantum Hall state with ultracold atoms. Nature 619, 495–499 (2023)

[3] Wang, C., Liu, F. “Realization of fractional quantum Hall state with interacting photons”. Science, 384 (2024)