No Arabic abstract
We theoretically explore quantum correlation properties of a dissipative Bose-Hubbard dimer in presence of a coherent drive. In particular, we focus on the regime where the semiclassical theory predicts a bifurcation with a spontaneous spatial symmetry breaking. The critical behavior in a well defined thermodynamical limit of large excitation numbers is considered and analyzed within a Gaussian approach. The case of a finite boson density is also examined by numerically integrating the Lindblad master equation for the density matrix. We predict the critical behavior around the bifurcation points accompanied with large quantum correlations of the mixed steady-state, in particular exhibiting a peak in the logarithmic entanglement negativity.
We analyze a modified Bose-Hubbard model, where two cavities having on-site Kerr interactions are subject to two-photon driving and correlated dissipation. We derive an exact solution for the steady state of this interacting driven-dissipative system, and use it show that the system permits the preparation and stabilization of pure entangled non-Gaussian states, so-called entangled cat states. Unlike previous proposals for dissipative stabilization of such states, our approach requires only a linear coupling to a single engineered reservoir (as opposed to nonlinear couplings to two or more reservoirs). Our scheme is within the reach of state-of-the-art experiments in circuit QED.
Spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) is a key concept in physics that for decades has played a crucial role in the description of many physical phenomena in a large number of different areas, like particle physics, cosmology, and condensed-matter physics. SSB is thus an ubiquitous concept connecting several, both high and low energy, areas of physics and many textbooks describe its basic features in great detail. However, to study the dynamics of symmetry breaking in the laboratory is extremely difficult. In condensed-matter physics, for example, tiny external disturbances cause a preference for the breaking of the symmetry in a particular configuration and typically those disturbances cannot be avoided in experiments. Notwithstanding these complications, here we describe an experiment, in which we directly observe the spontaneous breaking of the temporal phase of a driven system with respect to the drive into two distinct values differing by $pi$.
We experimentally study the influence of dissipation on the driven Dicke quantum phase transition, realized by coupling external degrees of freedom of a Bose-Einstein condensate to the light field of a high-finesse optical cavity. The cavity provides a natural dissipation channel, which gives rise to vacuum-induced fluctuations and allows us to observe density fluctuations of the gas in real-time. We monitor the divergence of these fluctuations over two orders of magnitude while approaching the phase transition and observe a behavior which significantly deviates from that expected for a closed system. A correlation analysis of the fluctuations reveals the diverging time scale of the atomic dynamics and allows us to extract a damping rate for the external degree of freedom of the atoms. We find good agreement with our theoretical model including both dissipation via the cavity field and via the atomic field. Utilizing a dissipation channel to non-destructively gain information about a quantum many-body system provides a unique path to study the physics of driven-dissipative systems.
We show that a two-atoms Bose-Hubbard model exhibits three different phases in the behavior of thermal entanglement in its parameter space. These phases are demonstrated to be traceable back to the existence of quantum phase transitions in the same system. Significant similarities between the behaviors of thermal entanglement and heat capacity in the parameter space are brought to light thus allowing to interpret the occurrence and the meaning of all these three phases.
The impacts that the environment has on the quantum phase transition of light in the DickeBose-Hubbard model are investigated. Based on the quasibosonic approach, mean field theory and the perturbation theory, the formulation of the Hamiltonian, the eigenenergies and the superfluid order parameter are obtained analytically. Compared with the ideal cases, the order parameter of the system evolves with time as the photons naturally decay in their environment. When the system starts with the superfluid state, the dissipation makes the photons tend to localize, and a greater hopping energy of photon is required to restore the long-range phase coherence of the localized state of the system. Furthermore, the Mott lobes disappears and the system tends to be classical with the number of atoms increasing; however, the atomic number is far lower than that expected under ideal circumstances. Therefore, our theoretical results offer valuable insight into the quantum phase transition of a dissipative system.