Cavity-QED and Photon-Atom Quantum Gates

The field of cavity quantum electrodynamics (Cavity-QED) describes the enhancement of light-matter interactions by mode confinement, up to a level allowing coherent coupling between single quantum emitters and single photons. In particular, such conditions enable deterministic quantum logic gates between single photons and single atoms, allowing entanglement of remote material systems, device-independent QKD, and the construction of entangled photonic quantum states that are vital for quantum computation. I will go over the basic concepts of optical cavity-QED, describe the principles of photon-atom gates in general, and the variety of protocols that can be carried out with the useful SWAP gate (1-3) in particular.