Synthetic Landau levels for photons

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates an experimental setup creating synthetic magnetic fields for photons in a resonator, enabling observation of photonic Landau levels and curvature effects, thus opening new avenues for topological photonics and quantum Hall physics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to generate magnetic fields for continuum photons using a non-planar resonator, and observes photonic Landau levels and curvature-induced effects experimentally.

Findings

Observation of photonic Landau levels at degeneracy

Detection of fractional state number excess consistent with Wen-Zee theory

Demonstration of flat space and curvature effects on photonic states

Abstract

Synthetic photonic materials are an emerging platform for exploring the interface between microscopic quantum dynamics and macroscopic material properties[1-5]. Photons experiencing a Lorentz force develop handedness, providing opportunities to study quantum Hall physics and topological quantum science[6-8]. Here we present an experimental realization of a magnetic field for continuum photons. We trap optical photons in a multimode ring resonator to make a two-dimensional gas of massive bosons, and then employ a non-planar geometry to induce an image rotation on each round-trip[9]. This results in photonic Coriolis/Lorentz and centrifugal forces and so realizes the Fock-Darwin Hamiltonian for photons in a magnetic field and harmonic trap[10]. Using spatial- and energy-resolved spectroscopy, we track the resulting photonic eigenstates as radial trapping is reduced, finally observing a photonic Landau level at degeneracy. To circumvent the challenge of trap instability at the centrifugal limit[10,11], we constrain the photons to move on a cone. Spectroscopic probes demonstrate flat space (zero curvature) away from the cone tip. At the cone tip, we observe that spatial curvature increases the local density of states, and we measure fractional state number excess consistent with the Wen-Zee theory, providing an experimental test of this theory of electrons in both a magnetic field and curved space[12-15]. This work opens the door to exploration of the interplay of geometry and topology, and in conjunction with Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency, enables studies of photonic fractional quantum Hall fluids[16,17] and direct detection of anyons[18-19].