Quantum dynamics ofropagatinghotons with strong interactions: A generalized input-output formalism

Abstract

There has been rapid development of systems that yield strong interactions between freelyropagatinghotons in one-dimension via controlled coupling to quantum emitters. This raises interestingossibilities such as quantum informationrocessing withhotons or quantum many-body states of light, but treating such systems generally remains a difficult task theoretically. Here, we describe a novel technique in which the dynamics and correlations of a fewhotons can be exactly calculated, based upon knowledge of the initialhotonic state and the solution of the reduced effective dynamics of the quantum emitters alone. We show that this generalized 'input-output' formalism allows for a straightforward numerical implementation regardless of system details, such as emitterositions, external driving, and level structure. As a specific example, we apply our technique to show how atomic systems with infinite-range interactions and under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency enable the selective transmission of correlated multi-photon states.