Steady-state phases and interaction-induced depletion in a driven-dissipative chirally-coupled dissimilar atomic array

Abstract

A nanophotonic waveguide coupled with an atomic array forms one of the strongly coupled quantum interfaces to showcase many fascinating collective features of quantum dynamics. In particular, for a dissimilar array of two different interparticle spacings with competing photon-mediated dipole-dipole interactions and directionality of couplings, we study the steady-state phases of atomic excitations under a weakly driven condition of laser field. We identify a partial set of steady-state phases of the driven system composed of combinations of steady-state solutions in a homogeneous array. We also reveal the intricate role of the atom at the interface of the dissimilar array in determining the steady-state phases and find an alteration in the dichotomy of the phases strongly associated with steady-state distributions with crystalline orders. We further investigate in detail the interaction-induced depletion in half of the dissimilar array, where the blockaded region results from two contrasting interparticle spacings near the reciprocal coupling regime. This can be further evidenced from the analytical solutions under the reciprocal coupling. Our results can provide insights in the driven-dissipative quantum phases of atomic excitations with nonreciprocal couplings and pave the avenues toward quantum simulations of exotic many-body states essential for quantum information applications. Published by the American Physical Society 2024