Zero-area single photon pulses

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that ultrashort broadband single photons can strongly interact with dense atomic gases, significantly altering their temporal shape to produce zero-area pulses without losing their quantum properties, revealing new quantum light-matter interaction regimes.

Contribution

It shows that ultrashort broadband single photons can generate zero-area pulses through strong transient coupling with atomic gases, challenging previous assumptions about bandwidth mismatch.

Findings

Ultrashort single photons can be deeply modified by atomic interactions.

Zero-area single-photon pulses can be generated without degrading quantum properties.

Strong transient coupling enables new quantum information applications.

Abstract

Broadband single photons are usually considered not to couple efficiently to atomic gases because of the large mismatch in bandwidth. Contrary to this intuitive picture, here we demonstrate that the interaction of ultrashort single photons with a dense resonant atomic sample deeply modifies the temporal shape of their wavepacket mode without degrading their non-classical character, and effectively generates zero-area single-photon pulses. This is a clear signature of strong transient coupling between single broadband (THz-level) light quanta and atoms, with intriguing fundamental implications and possible new applications to the storage of quantum information.