Polarization-Resolved Photon Statistics of Cavity Quantum Materials

Abstract:By forming hybrid light-matter states, optical cavities offer a route for engineering material properties, however, unambiguously probing the effects of light-matter coupling remains difficult. Here, we show that the polarization-resolved statistics of photons transmitted through a cavity, measurable via $g^{(2)}$, provide one such diagnostic. By relating $g^{(2)}$ to matter correlation functions such as the Raman structure factor, we link photon bunching and antibunching to material properties. By applying this method to the stripy-to-antiferromagnetic transition in the Kitaev-Heisenberg spin model, we find that polarization-dependent patterns of bunching and antibunching encode the magnetic point-group symmetries of each phase and characterize the behavior at the phase boundary. Finally, we predict measuring $g^{(2)}$ for output photon pairs polarized orthogonal to the input field will isolate higher-order light-matter scattering processes that probe higher-order material correlations.

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall); Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el); Optics (physics.optics); Quantum Physics (quant-ph)

arXiv:2606.11550 [cond-mat.mes-hall]

(or arXiv:2606.11550v2 [cond-mat.mes-hall] for this version)

Phys. Rev. B 114, 165130 (2026)

https://doi.org/10.1103/34vt-61w5 DOI(s) linking to related resources