No Arabic abstract
In this paper we construct a new type of cavity array, in each cavity of which multiple two-level atoms interact with two independent photon modes. This system can be totally governed by a two-mode Dicke-lattice model, which includes all of the counter-rotating terms and therefore works well in the ultrastrong coupling regime achieved in recent experiments. Attributed to its special atom-photon coupling scheme, this model supports a global conserved excitation and a continuous $U(1)$ symmetry, rather than the discrete $Z_{2}$ symmetry in the standard Dicke-lattice model. This distinct change of symmetry via adding an extra photon mode strongly impacts the nature of photon localization/delocalization behavior. Specifically, the atom-photon interaction features stable Mott-lobe structures of photons and a second-order superfluid-Mott-insulator phase transition, which share similarities with the Jaynes-Cummings-lattice and Bose-Hubbard models. More interestingly, the Mott-lobe structures predicted here depend crucially on the atom number of each site. We also show that our model can be mapped into a continuous $XX$ spin model. Finally, we propose a scheme to implement the introduced cavity array in circuit quantum electrodynamics. This work broadens our understanding of strongly-correlated photons.
Magnetic interaction between photons and dipoles is essential in electronics, sensing, spectroscopy, and quantum computing. However, its weak strength often requires resonators to confine and store the photons. Here, we present mode engineering techniques to create resonators with ultrasmall mode volume and ultrahigh quality factor. In particular, we show that it is possible to achieve an arbitrarily small mode volume only limited by materials or fabrication with minimal Q degradation. We compare mode-engineered cavities in a trade-off space and show that the magnetic interaction can be strengthened more than $10^{16}$ times compared to free space. These methods enable new applications from high-cooperativity microwave-spin coupling in quantum computing or compact electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) sensors to fundamental science such as dark matter searches.
The controllability of current quantum technologies allows to implement spin-boson models where two-photon couplings are the dominating terms of light-matter interaction. In this case, when the coupling strength becomes comparable with the characteristic frequencies, a spectral collapse can take place, i.e. the discrete system spectrum can collapse into a continuous band. Here, we analyze the thermodynamic limit of the two-photon Dicke model, which describes the interaction of an ensemble of qubits with a single bosonic mode. We find that there exists a parameter regime where two-photon interactions induce a superradiant phase transition, before the spectral collapse occurs. Furthermore, we extend the mean-field analysis by considering second-order quantum fluctuations terms, in order to analyze the low-energy spectrum and compare the critical behavior with the one-photon case.
Gauge invariance is the cornerstone of modern quantum field theory. Recently, it has been shown that the quantum Rabi model, describing the dipolar coupling between a two-level atom and a quantized electromagnetic field, violates this principle. This widely used model describes a plethora of quantum systems and physical processes under different interaction regimes. In the ultrastrong coupling regime, it provides predictions which drastically depend on the chosen gauge. This failure is attributed to the finite-level truncation of the matter system. We show that a careful application of the gauge principle is able to restore gauge invariance even for extreme light-matter interaction regimes. The resulting quantum Rabi Hamiltonian in the Coulomb gauge differs significantly from the standard model and provides the same physical results obtained by using the dipole gauge. It contains field operators to all orders that cannot be neglected when the coupling strength is high. These results shed light on subtleties of gauge invariance in nonperturbative and extreme interaction regimes, which are now experimentally accessible, and solve all the long-lasting controversies arising from gauge ambiguities in the quantum Rabi and Dicke models.
We study ultrastrong-coupling quantum-phase-transition phenomena in a few-qubit system. In the one-qubit case, three second-order transitions occur and the Goldstone mode emerges under the condition of ultrastrong-coupling strength. Moreover, a first-order phase transition occurs between two different superradiant phases. In the two-qubit case, a two-qubit Hamiltonian with qubit-qubit interactions is analyzed fully quantum mechanically. We show that the quantum phase transition is inhibited even in the ultrastrong-coupling regime in this model. In addition, in the three-qubit model, the superradiant quantum phase transition is retrieved in the ultrastrong-coupling regime. Furthermore, the N-qubit model with U(1) symmetry is studied and we find that the superradiant phase transition is inhibited or restored with the qubit-number parity.
We study the cavity mode frequencies of a Fabry-Perot cavity containing two vibrating dielectric membranes. We derive the equations for the mode resonances and provide approximate analytical solutions for them as a function of the membrane positions, which act as an excellent approximation when the relative and center-of-mass position of the two membranes are much smaller than the cavity length. With these analytical solutions, one finds that extremely large optomechanical coupling of the membrane relative motion can be achieved in the limit of highly reflective membranes when the two membranes are placed very close to a resonance of the inner cavity formed by them. We also study the cavity finesse of the system and verify that, under the conditions of large coupling, it is not appreciably affected by the presence of the two membranes. The achievable large values of the ratio between the optomechanical coupling and the cavity decay rate, $g/kappa$, make this two-membrane system the simplest promising platform for implementing cavity optomechanics in the strong coupling regime.