Quantum Technologies in Electrodynamic Resonators and Waveguides

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to submit a manuscript to the Photonics Special Issue ‘Quantum Technologies in Electrodynamic Resonators’.

One steady effort shared by different scientific communities is the search for the best suited platforms in which quantum phenomena can be controlled with extraordinary precision, while being amenable to microscopic modeling in a joined experimental and theoretical collaboration. Reaching extreme controllable quantum degeneracy conditions requires the flexibility of tuning independently as many knobs as possible, among temperature, strength and range of the interactions, number of effective dimensions,  action of external scalar and vector fields, and topology. With such a toolbox at hand, quantum technologies can be engineered in table-top experiments, ultimately aimed at controlling chemical bonds to produce ingenious materials, or at realizing quantum devices, playing quantum simulators for condensed-matter and fundamental physics, and setting environments for quantum metrology and quantum information applications.

In this scenario, quantum electrodynamic resonators coupled to matter represent an exciting example, where the light-matter interaction can be engineered in both spatial and internal degrees of freedom to carve quantum states. This platform is manifold, depending on whether matter is in the form of ultra-cold atoms, superconducting circuits, excitons and inter-subband excitations from semiconductors; specific nonlinear optical media leading to fluids of photons under ultra-strong coupling conditions. Each system possesses its own specific characteristics; they all share two essential traits. First, the light-matter interaction can be tailored and enhanced via the resonator concept. Second, these are all open quantum systems in an environment, where driven-dissipative processes cannot be avoided and can be favorably devised for clever system engineering. 

The concept of this Special Issue is to provide the community with a cross-disciplinary experimental and theoretical overview of this exciting aspect of physics, in fact, in the same place where the most challenging ideas in this growing field are collected and presented in a comprehensive manner. By bringing together different communities in the same ground where similarities and differences are shared, we expect that readers might enjoy the fostering of new ideas and boosting creativity.

Given the Special Issue settings, we welcome contributions covering the following systems:

• Ultra-cold atoms in optical cavities
• Superconducting circuits interacting with microwave resonators and waveguides
• Polaritons in optical cavities
• Quantum fluids of light

These can be matched with one of the following topics:

• Materials engineering
• Quantum devices
• Quantum metrology
• Quantum simulators for condensed-matter physics
• Quantum simulators for fundamental physics
• Quantum information and computing

To realize the aim of this Special Issue, we are inviting three types of contributions:

• Original articles detailing new advances in solving open problems, which may be included within a comprehensive overview of additional challenges in the field;
• (Short) reviews, possibly combining experimental and theoretical analysis;
• Articles focused on theoretical educational research problems and didactic experiments related to matter–radiation interaction in optical resonators.

In all cases, we would appreciate if interested authors might address scientists of different communities, avoiding too specific jargon.

The deadline for submission is June 30^th, 2021. We hope that the present initiative may be useful to the composite community, and we look forward to receiving contributions from interested authors

• strongly correlated systems
• many-body physics in optical cavities
• fluids of light
• superconducting circuits in microwave resonators