Non-Hermitian Magnon-Photon Interference in an Atomic Ensemble

Rong Wen, Chang-Ling Zou, Xinyu Zhu, Peng Chen, Z. Y. Ou, J. F. Chen, and Weiping Zhang
Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 253602 – Published 27 June 2019
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Abstract

The interference of photons in a lossy beam splitter (BS) exhibits anticoalescence, which is surprising for bosons. Such a non-Hermitian system involving open quantum dynamics is of particular interest for quantum information processing and metrology. The Hermiticity of photonic devices is generally fixed according to the material, but is controllable at the interface of photons and atomic systems. Here, we demonstrate a tunable non-Hermitian BS for the interference between traveling photonic and localized magnonic modes. The crossover from a Hermitian to a non-Hermitian magnon-photon BS is achieved by controlling the coherent and incoherent interaction mediated by the excited levels of atoms, which is reconfigurable via the detuning of a control laser. A correlated interference pattern between the photons and magnons is demonstrated by such a non-Hermitian BS. Our system has the potential to operate with photons and magnons at the single-quanta level, and it provides a versatile quantum interface for studying the non-Hermitian quantum physics and parity-time symmetry.

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  • Received 25 January 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.253602

© 2019 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic, Molecular & Optical

Authors & Affiliations

Rong Wen1, Chang-Ling Zou5, Xinyu Zhu1, Peng Chen1, Z. Y. Ou4, J. F. Chen1,6,*, and Weiping Zhang2,3,†

  • 1State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, Quantum Institute for Light and Atoms, School of Physics and Materials Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China
  • 2School of Physics and Astronomy, Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
  • 3Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China
  • 4Department of Physics, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, 402 North Blackford Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46202, USA
  • 5Key Laboratory of Quantum Information, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, Anhui, China
  • 6Shenzhen Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering and Department of Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China

  • *jfchen@phy.ecnu.edu.cn
  • wpz@sjtu.edu.cn

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Issue

Vol. 122, Iss. 25 — 28 June 2019

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