Towards dissipative preparation of a topological quantum fluid in a twisted cavity 

Twisted optical cavities are a powerful tool for shaping photonic energy levels and creating artificial gauge fields for light. By combining a twisted optical cavity with ultracold atoms, photons are converted into cavity Rydberg polaritons—quasiparticles that exhibit strong mutual interactions mediated by the Rydberg blockade.

Here, we report on our recent technical progress to optimize the highly integrated apparatus that includes an intra-cavity lens twisted resonator, a twisted build-up cavity for Rydberg excitation light, a DMD setup for optical mode generation and Landau level disorder characterization, a Mega-FPS low light camera for cavity dynamics characterization, electric field control as well as in-vacuum alignment capabilities. Using these tools, we demonstrate enhanced Rydberg interactions by tuning pair states into Förster resonance using microwave drives, successfully improving the g(2)(0) from approximately 0.9 to 0.5 at principal quantum number n=44.

While we have previously demonstrated two-particle Laughlin states through single-mode driving, scaling to larger, many-body quantum states necessitates a more sophisticated state preparation strategy. Leveraging the driven-dissipative character of our system, we present a new state preparation scheme enabled by recent upgrades to a dual-isotope experiment and the incompressibility of Laughlin states. Our approach allows for dissipatively stabilized Laughlin state preparation expanding on the work of superconducting systems [1], and creates the possibility for controllable and robust preparation of topologically ordered quantum states in photonic quantum matter.

[1] Ma, Ruichao, Brendan Saxberg, Clai Owens, Nelson Leung, Yao Lu, Jonathan Simon and David I. Schuster. “A dissipatively stabilized Mott insulator of photons.” Nature 566 (2018)