Many-Body Physics with Rydberg Polaritons
Understanding and manipulating quantum materials is a long sought goal in both the condensed matter and cold atom communities. Rydberg polaritons have recently emerged as a good candidate for studying quantum many-body states due to their fast dynamics and convenient manipulation. Indeed, synthetic magnetic fields and nontrivial topology for photons have been realized using non-planar resonators. Moreover, Rydberg mediated interactions enable photons to collide with each other on a single quantum level. We have used these interactions to realize a polaritonic quantum dot in a single cavity mode, and show the cavity-atom system behaves like a two-level super atom. By manipulating the atomic state to couple with multiple cavity modes simultaneously, we explore the collisions of polaritons between modes. Finally, I will discuss our effort in combining those two capabilities to prepare a few photon Laughlin states. This work points the way to exploring topological quantum materials comprised of Rydberg polaritons.