Can the dynamical Lamb effect be observed in a superconducting circuit?


Abstract in English

The dynamical Lamb effect is predicted to arise in superconducting circuits when the coupling of a superconducting qubit with a resonator is periodically switched on and off nonadiabatically. We show that by using a superconducting circuit which allows to switch between longitudinal and transverse coupling of a qubit to a resonator, it is possible of to observe the dynamical Lamb effect. {The switching between longitudinal and transverse coupling can be achieved by modulating the magnetic flux through the circuit loops.} By solving the Schr{o}dinger equation for a qubit coupled to a resonator, we calculate the time evolution of the probability of excitation of the qubit and the creation of $n$ photons in the resonator due to the dynamical Lamb effect. The probability is maximum when the coupling is periodically switched between longitudinal and transverse using a square-wave or sinusoidal modulation of the magnetic flux with frequency equal to the sum of the average qubit and photon transition frequencies.

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