Special CPM Seminar

Quantum fluids of light

Cristiano Ciuti

Université Paris Diderot

This seminar will show that light can behave as a fluid thanks to effective photon-photon interactions mediated by electronic excitations in nonlinear optical media[1]. A rich class of photon hydro-dynamical effects will be discussed, starting from the superfluid flow around a photonic defect at low speeds in a planar geometry, to the emergence of Mach-Cherenkov cones in a supersonic flow, where the “speed of sound of light” is due to the photon-photon interactions. The second part of the talk will be devoted to new directions concerning the physics of strongly correlated photons in lattices of coupled cavities. Physical mechanisms leading to photon blockade will be discussed as well as their application to the generation of novel strongly correlated quantum phases of light. The physics presented here applies to a broad spectrum of systems, ranging from semiconductor microcavities, to atomic clouds embedded in optical fibers and photonic crystal cavities, to superconducting quantum circuits based on Josephson junctions.

[1] I. Carusotto, C. Ciuti, Quantum fluids of light, Rev. Mod. Phys. 85, 299-366 (2013)