We show that the critical exponent of a quantum phase transition in a damped-driven open system is determined by the spectral density function of the reservoir. We consider the open-system variant of the Dicke model, where the driven boson mode and a
lso the large N-spin couple to independent reservoirs at zero temperature. The critical exponent, which is $1$ if there is no spin-bath coupling, decreases below 1 when the spin couples to a sub-Ohmic reservoir.
The dispersive interaction of a Bose-Einstein condensate with a single mode of a high-finesse optical cavity realizes the radiation pressure coupling Hamiltonian. In this system the role of the mechanical oscillator is played by a single condensate e
xcitation mode that is selected by the cavity mode function. We study the effect of atomic s-wave collisions and show that it merely renormalizes parameters of the usual optomechanical interaction. Moreover, we show that even in the case of strong harmonic confinement---which invalidates the use of Bloch states---a single excitation mode of the Bose-Einstein condensate couples significantly to the light field, that is the simplified picture of a single mechanical oscillator mode remains valid.
Laser-driven Bose-Einstein condensate of ultracold atoms loaded into a lossy high-finesse optical resonator exhibits critical behavior and, in the thermodynamic limit, a phase transition between stationary states of different symmetries. The system r
ealizes an open-system variant of the celebrated Dicke-model. We study the transition for a finite number of atoms by means of a Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov method adapted to a damped-driven open system. The finite-size scaling exponents are determined and a clear distinction between the non-equilibrium and the equilibrium quantum criticality is found.
