Topological multi-mode waveguide QED

TL;DR

This paper explores how topologically protected edge modes in photonic insulators can be used to interface with quantum emitters, enabling novel quantum states and gates in topological photonic systems.

Contribution

It demonstrates the use of topological edge modes for quantum emitter interactions, including spatial separation, entangled state generation, and selective channel coupling.

Findings

Quantum emitters exhibit quasiquantized decay rates due to edge modes.

Single-photon time-bin entangled states can be generated without classical analogs.

Emitters can selectively interact with different topological channels using nonlocal couplings.

Abstract

Topological insulators feature a number of topologically protected boundary modes linked to the value of their bulk invariant. While in one-dimensional systems the boundary modes are zero dimensional and localized, in two-dimensional topological insulators the boundary modes are chiral, one-dimensional propagating modes along the edges of the system. Thus, topological photonic insulators with large Chern numbers naturally display a topologically protected multimode waveguide at their edges. Here, we show how to take advantage of these topologically protected propagating modes by interfacing them with quantum emitters. In particular, using a Harper-Hofstadter lattice, we find situations in which the emitters feature quasiquantized decay rates due to the increasing number of edge modes, and where their spontaneous emission spatially separates in different modes. We also show how using a single $\pi$-pulse the combination of such spatial separation and the interacting character of the emitters leads to the formation of a single-photon time-bin entangled state with no classical analog, which we characterize computing its entanglement entropy. Finally, we also show how the emitters can selectively interact with the different channels using nonlocal light-matter couplings such as the ones that can be obtained with giant atoms. Such capabilities pave the way for generating quantum gates among topologically protected photons as well as generating more complex entangled states of light in topological channels.