Zeidan Zeidan, Tillämpad kvantfysik

Nonlinear light-matter interactions have been studied for decades, leading to the discovery of various quantum phenomena, including generation of nonclassical states of light, antibunching, and superradiance. This thesis deals with light-matter interactions between atoms and propagating photonic fields in one-dimensional waveguides. Specifically, we study the scattering of a weak resonant coherent field by N identicial atoms in a waveguide. For atoms separated by the drive wavelength, increasing the number of atoms suppresses transmission while enhancing photon bunching. Transmission becomes a superbunched (N+1)-photon scattering process that is predominantly incoherent. Remarkably, we find that transmission occurs through a process where all N atoms are excited, enabling heralded multi-photon state generation with applications in long-distance entanglement and quantum metrology.