Entanglement generation in weakly-driven arrays of multilevel atoms via dipolar interactions

We investigate the driven-dissipative dynamics of 1D and 2D arrays of multilevel atoms interacting via dipole-dipole interactions and trapped at subwavelength scales. Here we show that in the weakly driven low excitation regime, multilevel atoms, in contrast to two-level atoms, can become strongly entangled. The entanglement manifests as the growth of collective spin-waves in the ground state manifold, and survives even after turning off the drive. We propose to use the $\sim 2.9\mu$m transition between ${}^3{\mathrm{P}}_2\leftrightarrow {}^3{\mathrm{D}}_3$ in ${}^{88}\mathrm{S}\mathrm{r}$ with $389\mathrm{n}\mathrm{m}$ trapping light as an ideal experimental platform for validating our predictions and as a novel quantum interface for the exploration of complex many-body phenomena emerging from light-matter interactions.