A polaritonic two-component Bose–Hubbard model

We demonstrate that polaritons in an array of interacting microcavities with strong atom–photon coupling can form a two-component Bose–Hubbard model in which both polariton species are protected against spontaneous emission as their atomic part is stored in two ground states of the atoms. The parameters of the effective model can be tuned via the driving strength of external lasers and include attractive and repulsive polariton interactions. We also describe a method to measure the number statistics in one cavity for each polariton species independently. 3 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. New Journal of Physics 10 (2008) 033011 1367-2630/08/033011+12$30.00 © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft