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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Many-body quantum optics in a Bose-Hubbard waveguide

Federico Roccati*

  • *Contact author: federico.roccati@unipa.it
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, L032022 – Published 12 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/lsrq-19nw

Abstract

Waveguide quantum electrodynamics (QED) studies the interaction between quantum emitters and guided photons in one dimension. When the waveguide hosts interacting photons, it becomes a platform to explore many-body quantum optics. However, the influence of photonic correlations on emitter dynamics remains poorly understood. In this work, we study the collective decay and coherent interactions of quantum emitters coupled to a one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard waveguide, an array of coupled photonic modes with repulsive on-site interactions that supports superfluid and Mott insulating phases. We show that photon-photon interactions alone can trigger a superradiant burst, independent of emitter spacing and transition frequency. In the off-resonant regime, emitters exhibit two distinct types of mediated interactions. Delocalized superfluid excitations yield persistent, long-range couplings, challenging the noninteracting paradigm, where long-range (dissipative) couplings occur in band, whereas short-range and coherent interactions occur in a bandgap. In the Mott limit, quasiparticles generate short-range interactions mediated by doublons and holons. Our work bridges many-body physics and waveguide QED, revealing how photonic many-body states shape emitter dynamics.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, L032022– Published 12 August, 2026
  • Received 15 May 2025
  • Accepted 28 July 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by Max Planck Society.

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