Chiral Quantum Optics with three-level atoms

Abstract

We study the dissipative dynamics of a three level atom in a cascade configuration driven by two independent lasers and coupled to a semi-infinite waveguide. The coupling to the waveguide is chiral, in the sense that each transition interacts only with the waveguide modes propagating in a given direction, and this direction is opposite for the two transitions. The waveguide is terminated by a mirror which coherently feeds the photon stream emitted by one transition back to the atom. Specifically, we study the dynamics of the atom and show that, at variance with the V-scheme, it does not evolve towards a pure dark state in the stationary regime.