Photons bouncing back and forth many times between highly reflecting mirrors provides a novel way to mediate interactions between laser-cooled atoms held between the mirrors. Such photon-mediated interactions provide a unique set of tools for both quantum simulation and sensing. In this talk, I will discuss our efforts to sculpt these interactions in order to expand the palette of cavity-mediated interactions that can be a realized, including exchange interactions [1, 2], many-body gap protection [1-3], XYZ interactions [4], 3 & 4-body interactions [5], and dissipative interactions [6-7]. I will high light our work in the context of enhanced matterwave interferometers [2-5, 8] and optical clocks [9].
[1] Norcia et al, Science 361 259 (2018)
[2] Luo et al, Science 384 551 (2024)
[3] Niu et al, Phy. Rev. Lett. 134 (11) 113403 (2025)
[4] Luo et al, Nature Physics 21 916 (2025)
[5] Luo et al, Science 390 925(2025)
[6] Schafer et al, Nature Physics 21 902 (2025)
[7] Song et al, Science Adv. 11, eadu5799 (2025)
[8] Greve et al, Nature 610 472-477 (2022)
[9] Robinson et al, Nature Physics 20 208-213 (2024)