Photon transport in a dissipative chain of nonlinear cavities

TL;DR

This paper investigates photon transport in a dissipative chain of nonlinear cavities driven by a localized coherent source, revealing how transport properties reflect the underlying many-body energy structure and correlations.

Contribution

It introduces a numerical approach to simulate large arrays of nonlinear cavities with dissipation, linking transport phenomena to many-body photon states.

Findings

Photon resonances reveal many-body energy levels

Transport characteristics reflect strong photon correlations

Simulation of up to sixty cavities achieved

Abstract

We analyze a chain of coupled nonlinear optical cavities driven by a coherent source of light localized at one end and subject to uniform dissipation. We characterize photon transport by studying the populations and the photon correlations as a function of position. When complemented with input-output theory, these quantities provide direct information about photon transmission through the system. The position of single- and multi-photon resonances directly reflect the structure of the many-body energy levels. This shows how a study of transport along a coupled cavity array can provide rich information about the strongly correlated (many-body) states of light even in presence of dissipation. By means of a numerical algorithm based on the time-evolving block decimation scheme adapted to mixed states, we are able to simulate arrays up to sixty cavities.