Coupling of polaritons to vibrational modes of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice

TL;DR

This paper investigates how polaritons interact with vibrational modes in ultracold atoms within an optical lattice, revealing mechanisms for thermalization and heating that could impact quantum simulation and information processing.

Contribution

It introduces a perturbative approach to analyze polariton-vibration coupling in ultracold atoms, highlighting its effects on thermalization and motional heating in optical lattices.

Findings

Resonance dipole-dipole interactions induce vibrational quanta exchange.

Strong exciton-photon coupling leads to polariton-vibration interactions.

These interactions cause thermalization and motional heating of lattice atoms.

Abstract

The coupling of internal electronic excitations to vibrational modes of the external motion of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice is studied here in using a perturbation expansion in small atomic displacements. In the Mott insulator case with one atom per site, the resonance dipole-dipole coupling between neighboring sites can induce emission and absorption of vibrational quanta. Within a cavity in the strong exciton-photon coupling regime such coupling results in polariton-vibration interactions, which create a significant thermalization mechanism for polaritons toward their minimum energy, and leading to motional heating of the lattice atoms.