The central paradigm of quantum optics is the absorp­tion and emission of radia­tion by quantum emitters. When the coupling between an emitter and its environ­ment becomes strong, intrigu­ing radia­tive proper­ties can be engineered, such as direc­tional emission patterns or strongly modified emission rates. This project aims at access­ing such effects in a system of ultra­cold atoms in optical lattices where artifi­cial emitters decay by emitting matter waves rather than optical radiation.

Analog quantum simula­tion allows study­ing complex quantum many-body systems by realiz­ing the system of inter­est in a clean and precisely control­lable setting of quantum parti­cles. This avenue has been success­fully pursued using ultra­cold atoms in optical lattices to study strongly corre­lated condensed matter systems. This project aims at extend­ing the capabil­i­ties of this platform to simula­tions in the fields of quantum optics and nanopho­ton­ics. The central paradigm of quantum optics is the absorp­tion of radia­tion by quantum emitters and subse­quent emission into the surround­ing environ­ment. When the coupling between an emitter and its environ­ment becomes strong, many-body quantum systems with inter­est­ing radia­tive proper­ties can be engineered, such as direc­tional emission patterns or excep­tion­ally long-lived “subra­di­ant” states.

These phenom­ena will be inves­ti­gated by replac­ing the quantum emitter by an artifi­cial two-level system of ultra­cold atoms in a state-depen­dent optical lattice. Trapped atoms in a metastable excited state will act as emitters, which can decay by “emitting” bath parti­cles, corre­spond­ing to matter waves of ground state atoms. To study the dynam­ics of these bath parti­cles the ground state atoms will be imaged with single-atom resolu­tion. The proposed analog quantum simula­tor will enable the study of strongly coupled light-matter inter­faces, which are inacces­si­ble in state-of-theart nanopho­tonic devices.