No Arabic abstract
We present a distinct mechanism for the formation of bound states in the continuum (BICs). In chiral quantum systems there appear zero-energy states in which the wave function has finite amplitude only in one of the subsystems defined by the chiral symmetry. When the system is coupled to leads with a continuum energy band, part of these states remain bound. We derive some algebraic rules for the number of these states depending on the dimensionality and rank of the total Hamiltonian. We examine the transport properties of such systems including the appearance of Fano resonances in some limiting cases. Finally, we discuss experimental setups based on microwave dielectric resonators and atoms in optical lattices where these predictions can be tested.
We show that finite lattices with arbitrary boundaries may support large degenerate subspaces, stemming from the underlying translational symmetry of the lattice. When the lattice is coupled to an environment, a potentially large number of these states remains weakly or perfectly uncoupled from the environment, realising a new kind of bound states in the continuum. These states are strongly localized along particular directions of the lattice which, in the limit of strong coupling to the environment, leads to spatially-localized subradiant states.
The quest to realise strongly interacting photons remains an outstanding challenge both for fundamental science and for applications. Here, we explore mediated photon-photon interactions in a highly imbalanced two-component mixture of exciton-polaritons in a semiconductor microcavity. Using a theory that takes into account non-perturbative correlations between the excitons as well as strong light-matter coupling, we demonstrate the high tunability of an effective interaction between quasiparticles formed by minority component polaritons interacting with a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of a majority component polaritons. In particular, the interaction, which is mediated by the exchange of sound modes in the BEC can be made strong enough to support a bound state of two quasiparticles. Since these quasiparticles consist partly of photons, this in turn corresponds to a dimer state of photons propagating through the BEC. This gives rise to a new light transmission line where the bound state wave function is directly mapped onto correlations between outgoing photons. Our findings open up new routes for realising highly non-linear optical materials and novel hybrid light-matter quantum systems.
The topology of one-dimensional chiral systems is captured by the winding number of the Hamiltonian eigenstates. Here we show that this invariant can be read-out by measuring the mean chiral displacement of a single-particle wavefunction that is connected to a fully localized one via a unitary and translational-invariant map. Remarkably, this implies that the mean chiral displacement can detect the winding number even when the underlying Hamiltonian is quenched between different topological phases. We confirm experimentally these results in a quantum walk of structured light.
We study the interplay between disorder and topology for the localized edge states of light in topological zigzag arrays of resonant dielectric nanoparticles. We characterize topological properties by the winding number that depends on both zigzag angle and spacing between nanoparticles in the array. For equal-spacing arrays, the system may have two values of the winding number $ u=0$ or $1$, and it demonstrates localization at the edges even in the presence of disorder, being consistent with experimental observations for finite-length nanodisk structures. For staggered-spacing arrays, the system possesses richer topological phases characterized by the winding numbers $ u=0$, $1$ or $2$, which depend on the averaged zigzag angle and disorder strength. In a sharp contrast to the equal-spacing zigzag arrays, staggered-spacing arrays reveal two types of topological phase transitions induced by the angle disorder, (i) $ u = 0 leftrightarrow u = 1$ and (ii) $ u = 1 leftrightarrow u = 2$. More importantly, the spectrum of staggered-spacing arrays may remain gapped even in the case of a strong disorder.
Topology describes properties that remain unaffected by smooth distortions. Its main hallmark is the emergence of edge states localized at the boundary between regions characterized by distinct topological invariants. This feature offers new opportunities for robust trapping of light in nano- and micro-meter scale systems subject to fabrication imperfections and to environmentally induced deformations. Here we show lasing in such topological edge states of a one-dimensional lattice of polariton micropillars that implements an orbital version of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger Hamiltonian. We further demonstrate that lasing in these states persists under local deformations of the lattice. These results open the way to the implementation of chiral lasers in systems with broken time-reversal symmetry and, when combined with polariton interactions, to the study of nonlinear topological photonics.