No Arabic abstract
We develop an open-system dynamical theory of the Casimir interaction between coherent atomic waves and a material surface. The system --- the external atomic waves --- disturbs the environment --- the electromagnetic field and the atomic dipole degrees of freedom --- in a non- local manner by leaving footprints on distinct paths of the atom interferometer. This induces a non-local dynamical phase depending simultaneously on two distinct paths, beyond usual atom-optics methods, and comparable to the local dynamical phase corrections. Non-local and local atomic phase coherences are thus equally important to capture the interplay between the external atomic motion and the Casimir interaction. Such dynamical phases are obtained for finite-width wavepackets by developing a diagrammatic expansion of the disturbed environment quantum state.
The steady state of a driven dense ensemble of two-level atoms is determined from the competition of coherent laser excitation and decay that acts in a correlated way on several atoms simultaneously. We show that the presence of this non-local dissipation lifts the direct link between the density of excited atoms and the photon emission rate which is typically present when atoms decay independently. The non-locality disconnects these static and dynamic observables so that a dynamical transition in one does not necessarily imply a transition in the other. Furthermore, the collective nature of the quantum jump operators governing the non-local decay results in the formation of spatial coherence in the steady state which can be measured by analyzing solely global quantities - the photon emission rate and the density of excited atoms. The experimental realization of the system with strontium atoms in a lattice is discussed.
If the boundary conditions of the quantum vacuum are changed in time, quantum field theory predicts that real, observable particles can be created in the initially empty modes. Here, we realize this effect by changing the boundary conditions of a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate, which yields a population of initially unoccupied spatial and spin excitations. We prove that the excitations are created as entangled excitation pairs by certifying continuous-variable entanglement within the many-particle output state.
We investigate the creation and control of emergent collective behavior and quantum correlations using feedback in an emitter-waveguide system using a minimal model. Employing homodyne detection of photons emitted from a laser-driven emitter ensemble into the modes of a waveguide allows to generate intricate dynamical phases. In particular, we show the emergence of a time-crystal phase, the transition to which is controlled by the feedback strength. Feedback enables furthermore the control of many-body quantum correlations, which become manifest in spin squeezing in the emitter ensemble. Developing a theory for the dynamics of fluctuation operators we discuss how the feedback strength controls the squeezing and investigate its temporal dynamics and dependence on system size. The largely analytical results allow to quantify spin squeezing and fluctuations in the limit of large number of emitters, revealing critical scaling of the squeezing close to the transition to the time-crystal. Our study corroborates the potential of integrated emitter-waveguide systems -- which feature highly controllable photon emission channels -- for the exploration of collective quantum phenomena and the generation of resources, such as squeezed states, for quantum enhanced metrology.
We study the dynamical Casimir effect using a fully quantum-mechanical description of both the cavity field and the oscillating mirror. We do not linearize the dynamics, nor do we adopt any parametric or perturbative approximation. By numerically diagonalizing the full optomechanical Hamiltonian, we show that the resonant generation of photons from the vacuum is determined by a ladder of mirror-field {em vacuum Rabi splittings}. We find that vacuum emission can originate from the free evolution of an initial pure mechanical excited state, in analogy with the spontaneous emission from excited atoms. By considering a coherent drive of the mirror, using a master-equation approach to take losses into account, we are able to study the dynamical Casimir effect for optomechanical coupling strengths ranging from weak to ultrastrong. We find that a resonant production of photons out of the vacuum can be observed even for mechanical frequencies lower than the cavity-mode frequency. Since high mechanical frequencies, which are hard to achieve experimentally, were thought to be imperative for realizing the dynamical Casimir effect, this result removes one of the major obstacles for the observation of this long-sought effect. We also find that the dynamical Casimir effect can create entanglement between the oscillating mirror and the radiation produced by its motion in the vacuum field, and that vacuum Casimir-Rabi oscillations can occur.
The principle of detailed balance is at the basis of equilibrium physics and is equivalent to the Kubo-Martin-Schwinger (KMS) condition (under quite general assumptions). In the present paper we prove that a large class of open quantum systems satisfies a dynamical generalization of the detailed balance condition ({it dynamical detailed balance}) expressing the fact that all the micro-currents, associated to the Bohr frequencies are constant. The usual (equilibrium) detailed balance condition is characterized by the property that this constant is identically zero. From this we deduce a simple and experimentally measurable relation expressing the microcurrent associated to a transition between two levels $epsilon_mtoepsilon_n$ as a linear combination of the occupation probabilities of the two levels, with coefficients given by the generalized susceptivities (transport coefficients). Finally, using a master equation characterization of the dynamical detailed balance condition, we show that this condition is equivalent to a local generalization of the usual KMS condition.