Quantum Borrmann effect for dissipation-immune photon-photon correlations

Abstract: We study theoretically the second-order correlation function $g^{(2)}(t)$ for photons transmitted through a periodic Bragg-spaced array of superconducting qubits, coupled to a waveguide. We demonstrate that photon bunching and anti-bunching persist much longer than both radiative and non-radiative lifetimes of a single qubit. The photon-photon correlations become immune to non-radiative dissipation due to the Borrmann effect, that is a strongly non-Markovian collective feature of light-qubit coupling inherent to the Bragg regime. This persistence of quantum correlations opens new avenues for enhancing the performance of setups of waveguide quantum electrodynamics.