Dipole blockade and quantum information processing in mesoscopic atomic ensembles.
We describe a technique for manipulating quantum information stored in collective states of mesoscopic ensembles. Quantum processing is accomplished by optical excitation into states with strong dipole-dipole interactions. The resulting "dipole blockade" can be used to inhibit transitions into all but singly excited collective states. This can be employed for a controlled generation of collective atomic spin states as well as nonclassical photonic states and for scalable quantum logic gates. An example involving a cold Rydberg gas is analyzed.
Lukin
M D
MD
ITAMP, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
Fleischhauer
M
M
Cote
R
R
Duan
L M
LM
Jaksch
D
D
Cirac
J I
JI
Zoller
P
P