Light-induced Self-Organization in Cooperative Free Space Atomic Arrays

Quantum Physics [Submitted on 22 Apr 2026] Light-induced Self-Organization in Cooperative Free Space Atomic Arrays Sara Molló-Guri, Oriol Rubies-Bigorda, Raphael Holzinger, Jonah S. Peter, Susanne F. Yelin We investigate how laser-driven, cooperative dipole-dipole interactions in weakly trapped atomic arrays give rise to self-organized configurations. Starting from an analytically tractable two-emitter system, we identify the possible steady-state spatial arrangements accessible to the atoms. We then extend this analysis to larger ensembles in both linear and ring geometries. In linear chains, we demonstrate the emergence of topologically nontrivial dimerized configurations across a range of initial interatomic spacings. In ring geometries, we find that the system undergoes self-organized contraction and expansion, enabling access to length scales below those set by the trapping lattice. Our results demonstrate that collective light-matter interactions in free space can spontaneously generate modified ordered geometries, even when the emitters are initially separated by distances larger than their transition wavelength. Comments: 11 pages, 8 figures Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2604.21012 [quant-ph]   (or arXiv:2604.21012v1 [quant-ph] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.21012 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Sara Molló-Guri [view email] [v1] Wed, 22 Apr 2026 19:00:08 UTC (1,577 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: quant-ph < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-04 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)