Incompressible Polaritons in a Flat Band

Phys Rev Lett. 2015 Oct 2;115(14):143601. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.143601. Epub 2015 Sep 29.

Abstract

We study the interplay of geometric frustration and interactions in a nonequilibrium photonic lattice system exhibiting a polariton flat band as described by a variant of the Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard model. We show how to engineer strong photonic correlations in such a driven, dissipative system by quenching the kinetic energy through frustration. This produces an incompressible state of photons characterized by short-ranged crystalline order with period doubling. The latter manifests itself in strong spatial correlations, i.e., on-site and nearest-neighbor antibunching combined with extended density-wave oscillations at larger distances. We propose a state-of-the-art circuit QED realization of our system, which is tunable in situ.