Self-organization of atoms coupled to a chiral reservoir

TL;DR

This paper investigates how atoms coupled to a chiral reservoir in one-dimensional nanophotonic systems self-organize into periodic structures, analyzing different regimes and potential experimental signatures like reflectivity and motional sidebands.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical analysis of atomic self-organization in chiral reservoirs, including solutions to equations of motion and experimental predictions, which was not previously explored.

Findings

Atoms form self-organized periodic distributions in chiral 1D systems.

The solutions depend on laser detuning and reservoir chirality.

Reflectivity and motional sidebands can serve as experimental signatures.

Abstract

Tightly confined modes of light, as in optical nanofibers or photonic crystal waveguides, can lead to large optical coupling in atomic systems, which mediates long-range interactions between atoms. These one-dimensional systems can naturally possess couplings that are asymmetric between modes propagating in different directions. Strong long-range interaction among atoms via these modes can drive them to a self-organized periodic distribution. In this paper, we examine the self-organizing behavior of atoms in one dimension coupled to a chiral reservoir. We determine the solution to the equations of motion in different parameter regimes, relative to both the detuning of the pump laser that initializes the atomic dipole-dipole interactions and the degree of reservoir chirality. In addition, we calculate possible experimental signatures such as reflectivity from self-organized atoms and motional sidebands.