Random singlet phase of cold atoms coupled to a photonic crystal waveguide

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that cold atoms near photonic crystal waveguides can realize a random singlet phase, revealing new many-body quantum phenomena in low-filling regimes and offering a pathway to study strongly correlated matter without perfect lattice filling.

Contribution

It introduces the realization of the random singlet phase in cold atom systems coupled to photonic crystal waveguides, using a renormalization group approach and adiabatic state preparation.

Findings

Random singlet phase can be realized in low-filling atom-photon systems.

Distribution of spin entanglement can be characterized via RG methods.

Experimental observation of the phase is feasible with current technology.

Abstract

Systems consisting of cold atoms trapped near photonic crystal waveguides have recently emerged as an exciting platform for quantum atom-light interfaces. Such a system enables realization of tunable long-range interactions between internal states of atoms (spins), mediated by guided photons. Currently, experimental platforms are still limited by low filling fractions, where the atom number is much smaller than the number of sites at which atoms can potentially be trapped. Here, we show that this regime in fact enables interesting many-body quantum phenomena, which are typically associated with short-range disordered systems. As an example, we show how the system can realize the so-called "random singlet phase", in which all atoms pair into entangled singlets, but the pairing occurs over a distribution of ranges as opposed to nearest neighbors. We use a renormalization group method to obtain the distribution of spin entanglement in the random singlet phase, and show how this state can be approximately reached via adiabatic evolution from the ground state of a non-interacting Hamiltonian. We also discuss how experimentally this random singlet phase can be observed. We anticipate that this work will accelerate the route toward the exploration of strongly correlated matter in atom-nanophotonics interfaces, by avoiding the requirement of perfectly filled lattices.