Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2024
Monday–Friday, March 4–8, 2024; Minneapolis & Virtual
Session Z54: Vortices and Quasiparticles
11:30 AM–12:54 PM,
Friday, March 8, 2024
Room: 203AB
Sponsoring
Unit:
DAMOP
Chair: Zoe Yan, University of Chicago
Abstract: Z54.00004 : Quantum vortices of strongly interacting photons*
12:06 PM–12:18 PM
Presenter:
Bankim Chandra Das
(Weizmann Institute of Science)
Authors:
Bankim Chandra Das
(Weizmann Institute of Science)
Lee Drori
(Weizmann Institute of Science)
Tomer D ZOHAR
(Weizmann Institute of Science)
Gal Winer
(Weizmann Institute of Science)
Eilon Poem
(Weizmann Institute of Science)
Alexander N Poddubny
(Weizmann Institute of Science)
Ofer Firstenberg
(Weizmann Institute of Science)
These vortices are a hallmark of topologically nontrivial dynamics in nonlinear physics. In optics, vortices manifest as phase twists of the electromagnetic field, commonly formed by the interaction of light and matter. Quantum vortices – phase singularities of the wavefunction – are typically expected in strongly interacting systems of many particles, primarily superfluid. Formation of vortices by effective interaction of light with itself requires strong optical nonlinearity and has, therefore, been confined until now to the classical regime.
We report on the realization of quantum vortices of photons that result from a strong photon-photon interaction in a quantum nonlinear optical medium. The interaction causes faster phase accumulation for copropagating photons, producing a quantum vortex-antivortex pair within the two-photon wave function.
For three photons, the strong interaction leads to an even richer topological structure of the three-photon wavefunction. The point vortices lead to the formation of vortex lines, and a central vortex ring attests to a genuine three-photon interaction.
The wavefunction topology, governed by two- and three-photon bound states, imposes a conditional phase shift of π per photon, a potential resource for deterministic quantum logic operations.
*We acknowledge financial support from the Israel Science Foundation, the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) and the US National Science Foundation (NSF), European Research Council starting investigator grant QPHOTONICS 678674, the Minerva Foundation with funding from the Federal German Ministry for Education and Research, the Estate of Louise Yasgour, and the Laboratory in Memory of Leon and Blacky Broder.
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