Quantum optics of chiral and antichiral waveguide arrays

Abstract

We study single-photon scattering by atoms in arrays of one-way waveguides. We investigate both chiral and antichiral arrays, where the one-way waveguides are aligned in the same and opposite directions, respectively. In the chiral array, reciprocity is broken: one of the (spatial) dimensions is time-like, resulting in a light-cone feature of the scattered fields. In contrast, the antichiral array preserves reciprocity and exhibit scattering behavior typical of wave systems. In analogy with classical physical optics, we exmaine the geometrical optics, diffraction, and scattering regimes in the waveguide arrays. We illustrate our results using numerical simulations.