Collective states in highly symmetric atomic configurations and single-photon traps

We study correlated states in circular and linear-chain configurations of identical two-level atoms containing the energy of a single quasi-resonant photon in the form of a collective excitation, where the collective behavior is mediated by exchange of transverse photons between the atoms. For a circular atomic configuration containing N atoms, the collective energy eigenstates can be determined by group-theoretical means making use of the fact that the configuration possesses a cyclic symmetry group Z _N . For these circular configurations, the carrier spaces of the various irreducible representations of the symmetry group are at most two-dimensional, so that the effective Hamiltonian on the radiationless subspace of the system can be diagonalized analytically. As a consequence, the radiationless energy eigenstates carry a Z _N quantum number p = 0, 1, …, N, which is analogous to the angular momentum quantum number l = 0, 1, … carried by particles propagating in a central potential, such as a hydrogen-like system. Just as the hydrogen s states are the only electronic wave functions that can occupy the central region of the Coulomb potential, the quasi-particle corresponding to a collective excitation of the circular atomic sample can occupy the central atom only for vanishing Z _N quantum number p. When a central atom is present, the p = 0 state splits into two, showing level crossing at certain radii; in the regions between these radii, damped oscillations between two “ extreme” p = 0 states occur, where the excitation occupies either the outer atoms or the central atom only. For large numbers of atoms in a maximally subradiant state, a critical interatomic distance of λ/2 emerges both in the linear-chain and in the circular configuration of atoms. The spontaneous decay rate of the linear configuration exhibits a jumplike “critical” behavior for next-neighbor distances close to a half-wavelength. Furthermore, both the linear-chain and the circular configurations exhibit exponential photon trapping once the next-neighbor distance becomes less than a half-wavelength, with the suppression of spontaneous decay being particularly pronounced in the circular system. In this way, circular configurations containing sufficiently many atoms may be natural candidates for single-photon traps.