Ultrastrong coupling of light and matter

Stephen Hughes
Queen's University

Abstract

Willis Lamb shared the (Physics) Nobel prize in 1955 for discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum, a “weak coupling” effect that played a pivotal role in the development of quantum electrodynamics (QED), and laser science. Around six decades later, in 2012, Haroche and Wineland shared the Nobel Prize for controlling individual photons and quantum systems using cavity-QED, in a “strong coupling” regime where the intrinsic quantum mechanical coupling between light and matter dominates any losses in the system. Recently, researchers have entered a new quantum light-matter interaction regime termed “ultrastrong coupling”, when the coupling rates between photons and matter are a sizable fraction of the electronic transition energies, where many of the standard light-matter theories and concepts developed for cavity-QED break down. This talk will give a brief overview of this exciting field, covering both theoretical and experimental developments, with a glimpse of emerging discoveries and applications in physics and (polaritonic) chemistry, including the ability to create entangled multi-photon matter states from nothing (vacuum).

Timbits, coffee, tea will be served in STI A before the colloquium