Alladi Ramakrishnan Hall

Novel approaches to study light-matter interaction: From hybrid quantum systems to photon condensation

Himadri S. Dhar

Imperial College, London

In the last couple of decades, there have been significant developments in the research on light matter interactions, leading to not only design and implementation of quantum technology such as the scalable storage of information but also in observation of exotic phenomena such as Bose-Einstein condensation in photons. In this talk, we introduce novel theoretical approaches based on many-body physics, open quantum systems and quantum information to study two specific instances that highlights the opposite ends of a spectrum of fascinating light-matter interaction. We start with a discussion on ‘hybrid quantum systems’ in cavity QED, where the cumulative advantage of different quantum components is harnessed in implementation of quantum technology, such as quantum memories and generation of nonclassical light. On the other end, we also look at the nonequilibrium phenomena related to the formation of exotic photon condensates when a solution of dye-molecules interacts with the thermalised modes of an optical micro-cavity.