Atom-light interactions in quasi-1D nanostructures: a Green's function perspective

TL;DR

This paper develops a Green's function-based formalism to analyze atom-light interactions in quasi-1D nanostructures, enabling insights into optical responses, atom-atom interactions, and phenomena like electromagnetically induced transparency.

Contribution

It introduces a Green's function approach to connect transmission spectra with local electromagnetic properties in 1D photonic structures, extending analysis to complex atomic systems.

Findings

Mapping between transmission spectra and Green's function signatures

Identification of dispersive and dissipative atom-atom interactions

Application to electromagnetically induced transparency in three-level atoms

Abstract

Based on a formalism that describes atom-light interactions in terms of the classical electromagnetic Green's function, we study the optical response of atoms and other quantum emitters coupled to one-dimensional photonic structures, such as cavities, waveguides, and photonic crystals. We demonstrate a clear mapping between the transmission spectra and the local Green's function that allows to identify signatures of dispersive and dissipative interactions between atoms. We also demonstrate the applicability of our analysis to problems involving three-level atoms, such as electromagnetically induced transparency. Finally we examine recent experiments, and anticipate future observations of atom-atom interactions in photonic bandgaps.