Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 359, Issue 6377, Pages 783-786Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.aao7293
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Funding
- NSF
- NSF Center for Ultracold Atoms
- U.S. Army Research Office (ARO)
- U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- ARO Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative
- Bush Fellowship
- U.S. Army Research Laboratory Center for Distributed Quantum Information
- NSF Quantum Information Science program
- NSF Physics Frontiers Center at the Joint Quantum Institute
- NSF [PHY-1511696]
- Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Physics [1506284] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Physics [1505862, 1430094] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Bound states of massive particles, such as nuclei, atoms, or molecules, constitute the bulk of the visible world around us. By contrast, photons typically only interact weakly. We report the observation of traveling three-photon bound states in a quantum nonlinear medium where the interactions between photons are mediated by atomic Rydberg states. Photon correlation and conditional phase measurements reveal the distinct bunching and phase features associated with three-photon and two-photon bound states. Such photonic trimers and dimers possess shape-preserving wave functions that depend on the constituent photon number. The observed bunching and strongly nonlinear optical phase are described by an effective field theory of Rydberg-induced photon-photon interactions. These observations demonstrate the ability to realize and control strongly interacting quantum many-body states of light.
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