Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:1206.0752 · Physical Review A

Adequacy of the Dicke model in cavity QED: A counter-no-go statement

András Vukics, P. Domokos

Published Nov 6, 2012• 68 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The long-standing debate whether the phase transition in the Dicke model can be realized with dipoles in electromagnetic fields is still an unsettled one. The well-known statement often referred to as the ``no-go theorem'' asserts that the so-called ${A}^{2}$ term, missing from the Dicke model, is relevant and prevents the system from undergoing a phase transition. At variance with this common belief, in this paper we prove that the Dicke model does give a proper description of the interaction of light field with the internal excitation of atoms. The phase transition and the spontaneous formation of a transverse-electric mean field cannot be excluded by principle. We point out that the proper treatment of the single-mode approximation is crucial, wherefore we present a systematic derivation of the dipole gauge inside a perfect Fabry-P\'erot cavity from first principles. Besides the impact on the debate around the Dicke phase transition, such a cleanup of the theoretical ground of cavity QED is important because currently there are many emerging experimental approaches to reach strong or even ultrastrong coupling between dipoles and photons, which demand a correct treatment of the Dicke model parameters.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.86.053807

Related papers

Quantum phase transitions in many-dipole light-matter systems

Daniele Lamberto, Omar Di Stefano, Stephen Hughes +2 more

A potential phase transition between a normal ground state and a photon-condensed ground state in many-dipole light-matter systems is a topic of considerable controversy, exacerbated by conflicting no-go and counter no-go theorems and often ill-defined models. We contribute to the clarification of this long-lasting debate by analyzing two specific arrangements of atoms, including a three-dimensional cubic lattice and a cavity-embedded square lattice layer—which provides a physical model for single-mode cavity QED with coupled dipoles in the thermodynamic limit. These models are shown to significantly differ from the standard Dicke model and, in the thermodynamic limit, give rise to renormalized Hopfield models. We show that a ferroelectric phase transition can, in principle, still occur and the description of the abnormal phase beyond the critical point requires the inclusion of nonlinear terms in the Holstein-Primakoff mapping. We also demonstrate how our model agrees with recent experiments.

arXiv:2405.10711•Physical Review Research•Mar 14, 2025•6 citations

Proposed realization of the Dicke-model quantum phase transition in an optical cavity QED system

Felipe Dimer, Benoit Estienne, A. S. Parkins +1 more

The Dicke model describing an ensemble of two-state atoms interacting with a single quantized mode of the electromagnetic field (with omission of the ${\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{A}}^{2}$ term) exhibits a zero-temperature phase transition at a critical value of the dipole coupling strength. We propose a scheme based on multilevel atoms and cavity-mediated Raman transitions to realize an effective Dicke model operating in the phase transition regime. Optical light from the cavity carries signatures of the critical behavior, which is analyzed for the thermodynamic limit where the number of atoms is very large.

arXiv:quant-ph/0607115•Physical Review A•Jan 8, 2007•547 citations

Breakdown of gauge invariance in ultrastrong-coupling cavity QED

Daniele De Bernardis, Philipp Pilar, Tuomas Jaako +2 more

We revisit the derivation of Rabi- and Dicke-type models, which are commonly used for the study of quantum light-matter interactions in cavity and circuit QED. We demonstrate that the validity of the two-level approximation, which is an essential step in this derivation, depends explicitly on the choice of gauge once the system enters the ultrastrong-coupling regime. In particular, while in the electric dipole gauge the two-level approximation can be performed as long as the Rabi frequency remains much smaller than the energies of all higher-lying levels, it can dramatically fail in the Coulomb gauge, even for systems with an extremely anharmonic spectrum. We extensively investigate this phenomenon both in the single-dipole (Rabi) and multidipole (Dicke) case, and consider the specific examples of dipoles confined by double-well and square-well potentials, and of circuit QED systems with flux qubits coupled to an LC resonator.

arXiv:1805.05339•Physical Review A•Nov 13, 2018•182 citations

Magnetic Phase Transitions in Driven-Dissipative Atomic Ensembles Interacting with Quantum Light

Jan Gelhausen

Present-day experiments have started to couple traditional simulations of ultracold atom experiments with quantum light-fields in cavities. This has provided a wealth of op- portunities to enlarge the number of interaction potentials: cavity mediated long-range interactions compete with kinetic energies, longitudinal fields, short-ranged collisional or magnetic spin-spin interactions. The intracavity many-body lattice models often have to be maintained far from equilibrium through the presence of external driving lasers that help to boost and engineer the various interaction potentials. The steady influx of energy is compensated by a steady stream of energy out of the atom-cavity system for example by photon losses or atomic spontaneous emission. Several experiments have demonstrated that such environments can give rise to new competing quantum phases. \nBut this long-standing ambition to push for models with tailorable interaction potentials can bring with it also considerable challenges in their theoretical description, since sponta- neous symmetry breaking transitions in many body lattice systems coupled to dynamical light-fields with single-photon character occur in the presence of drive and dissipation for the photonic force carriers. This clearly calls for model systems where the above men- tioned interplay of interactions, drive, dissipation and cooperative many-body behaviour can be theoretically studied to provide simple, experimentally verifiable predictions. \nThe Dicke model is, through its simplicity (an exactly solved ferromagnet with infinite range atom-atom interactions mediated by a single cavity mode), an exceptionally well- suited candidate. As the generic model for atom-light interactions, it has been experimen- tally realized in a variety of modern quantum optical systems, highlighting its relevance for present-day research. The Dicke model is also highly versatile itself. It has been extended into the dissipative realm, was promoted to account for multiple optical light modes and was used to describe multiple, coupled single-mode cavity structures. It was adapted to treat spin-selective coupling to a cavity to describe superradiance phase tran- sitions in multi-level atomic systems. Moreover, it was realised in electronic circuits where the dipole coupling of real atoms to single mode fields is replaced by a capacitive cou- pling of artificial atoms to a resonator mode. This illustrates that the Dicke model and its extended variants are ’future-proof’ and continue to be of relevance for fundamental light-matter interactions and for driven-dissipative phase transitions. \nIn this thesis, we investigate magnetic phase transitions in driven-dissipative atomic en- sembles interacting with quantum light. We present three research projects on variants of cooperative radiation of an ensemble of laser driven two-level atoms in a single mode optical cavity, as described by the Dicke model. \nThroughout the chapters 2,3 and 4 that contain the main body of research of this thesis, we investigate phase transitions between non-equilibrium stationary states in engineered quantum-optical systems each of which extends the conventional Dicke model physics. As a starting point, we map the quantum equations of motion onto a set of semiclassical nonlinear stochastic equations and analyse their stationary states and instabilities with master equations for atomic spin and photon mean-field amplitudes. These are used to obtain experimentally relevant parameters such as critical atom-light couplings for phase transitions, phase diagrams and properties of stationary non-equilibrium states in addition to cavity output spectra that identify the imprint of magnetic correlations in the light-field. \nIn chapter 2, we help resolve a discrepancy between earlier experimental investigations of the critical atom-light coupling strength for the superradiance transition in the Dicke model: higher external pumping strengths than theoretically predicted were needed to observe a coherent, superradiant state of the light field in an optical cavity. By including incoherent spontaneous emission of atomic excitations, we extend the dissipative Dicke model to a two loss channel variant containing both photon leakage and atomic decay that reproduces the experimentally observed critical atom-light coupling. \nRecent experiments have started to interface quantum many body lattice models with coherent cavity fields, thereby allowing to realize new quantum phases through competing atom-cavity and atom-atom interactions. In chapter 3, we consider a simplified model for such a set-up where a single quantized mode of the light-field interacts with an ensemble of Rydberg-dressed atoms inside a high finesse optical cavity. This model provides a base case for further studies of quantum magnets in optical cavities. At the heart of this model is a competition of short- (dipolar atom-atom) and long-range (atom-light) interactions at the Hamiltonian level in the presence of both spontaneous emission and photon leak- age through the cavity mirrors. We show that different magnetic phases can coexist with coherent atomic radiation and provide clear experimental signatures to identify the mag- netic structure and intra-cavity dynamics. We suggest an experimental level-scheme for a quantum optical implementation of our model. \nIn chapter 4 we consider a generic, collective decay for many-body excitations in the paradigmatic Dicke model. This extension drastically enriches the dynamics as it induces a bicritical point and a bistable regime dominated by true non-equilibrium fluctuations that induce a dissipative first-order phase transition that can only be resolved by including finite fluctuation corrections with the help of stochastic Langevin equations. We investigate the hysteretic response to time-dependent ramps of the atom-light coupling. Discontinuous first-order phase transitions where metastable states coexist in a hysteresis domain have been investigated in recent dissipative quantum-optical experiments. We review noise- activation far from thermal equilibrium in chapter 5.

•Aug 1, 2018•0 citations

Nonequilibrium cavity QED model accounting for dipole-dipole interaction in strong-, ultrastrong-, and deep-strong-coupling regimes

Asha Devi, Sarath D. Gunapala, Mark I. Stockman +1 more

We propose a generalized system of nonequilibrium cavity QED with interacting dipoles coupled to a single-mode of an electromagnetic field in strong-, ultrastrong-, and deep-strong-coupling regimes. To illustrate the applicability of the system, an extended Dicke model is developed for atoms undergoing Raman transitions between the ground states in the presence of laser fields and considering dipole-dipole interactions; the latter has been neglected in many previous works. We have studied the effect of a ferroelectric and an antiferroelectric arrangement on the phase transition for both a finite and an infinite number of dipoles. An additional superradiant phase is observed in the deep-strong-coupling regime due to influence of the dipole-dipole interaction term. A high degree of dipole-dipole entanglement occurs for the antiferroelectric arrangement in the deep-strong regime, whereas it gets disentangled quite rapidly for the ferroelectric arrangement. A sharp transition of system parameters is observed in the ultrastrong-coupling regime and beyond. The dipole-dipole interaction also influences the spectra of the system, inducing a significant shift in the peaks, and modifies the average number of photons emitted.

Physical Review A•Jul 6, 2020•18 citations

Coulomb interactions, gauge invariance, and phase transitions of the Dicke model

Jonathan Keeling

Phase transitions of a generalized Dicke model in the Coulomb gauge-including A(2) terms in the matter-radiation coupling, as well as direct dipole-dipole interaction terms-are studied. After a brief review of previous work on the 'no-go theorem' for phase transitions in the Dicke model, it is shown that a consistent truncation of the radiation modes and of the direct interactions leads to a model that does have a phase transition. When transformed to the electric dipole gauge, such a system takes exactly the form of the original Dicke Hamiltonian, which displays the expected phase transition.

Journal of Physics Condensed Matter•Jun 11, 2007•95 citations
The long-standing debate whether the phase transition in the Dicke model can be realized with dipoles in electromagnetic fields is still an unsettled one. The well-known statement often referred to as the ``no-go theorem'' asserts that the so-called A2{A}^{2}A2 term, missing from the Dicke model, is relevant and prevents the system from undergoing a phase transition. At variance with this common belief, in this paper we prove that the Dicke model does give a proper description of the interaction of light field with the internal excitation of atoms. The phase transition and the spontaneous formation of a transverse-electric mean field cannot be excluded by principle. We point out that the proper treatment of the single-mode approximation is crucial, wherefore we present a systematic derivation of the dipole gauge inside a perfect Fabry-P'erot cavity from first principles. Besides the impact on the debate around the Dicke phase transition, such a cleanup of the theoretical ground of cavity QED is important because currently there are many emerging experimental approaches to reach strong or even ultrastrong coupling between dipoles and photons, which demand a correct treatment of the Dicke model parameters.
A potential phase transition between a normal ground state and a photon-condensed ground state in many-dipole light-matter systems is a topic of considerable controversy, exacerbated by conflicting no-go and counter no-go theorems and often ill-defined models. We contribute to the clarification of this long-lasting debate by analyzing two specific arrangements of atoms, including a three-dimensional cubic lattice and a cavity-embedded square lattice layer—which provides a physical model for single-mode cavity QED with coupled dipoles in the thermodynamic limit. These models are shown to significantly differ from the standard Dicke model and, in the thermodynamic limit, give rise to renormalized Hopfield models. We show that a ferroelectric phase transition can, in principle, still occur and the description of the abnormal phase beyond the critical point requires the inclusion of nonlinear terms in the Holstein-Primakoff mapping. We also demonstrate how our model agrees with recent experiments.
The Dicke model describing an ensemble of two-state atoms interacting with a single quantized mode of the electromagnetic field (with omission of the ${\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{A}}^{2}$ term) exhibits a zero-temperature phase transition at a critical value of the dipole coupling strength. We propose a scheme based on multilevel atoms and cavity-mediated Raman transitions to realize an effective Dicke model operating in the phase transition regime. Optical light from the cavity carries signatures of the critical behavior, which is analyzed for the thermodynamic limit where the number of atoms is very large.
We revisit the derivation of Rabi- and Dicke-type models, which are commonly used for the study of quantum light-matter interactions in cavity and circuit QED. We demonstrate that the validity of the two-level approximation, which is an essential step in this derivation, depends explicitly on the choice of gauge once the system enters the ultrastrong-coupling regime. In particular, while in the electric dipole gauge the two-level approximation can be performed as long as the Rabi frequency remains much smaller than the energies of all higher-lying levels, it can dramatically fail in the Coulomb gauge, even for systems with an extremely anharmonic spectrum. We extensively investigate this phenomenon both in the single-dipole (Rabi) and multidipole (Dicke) case, and consider the specific examples of dipoles confined by double-well and square-well potentials, and of circuit QED systems with flux qubits coupled to an LC resonator.
Present-day experiments have started to couple traditional simulations of ultracold atom experiments with quantum light-fields in cavities. This has provided a wealth of op- portunities to enlarge the number of interaction potentials: cavity mediated long-range interactions compete with kinetic energies, longitudinal fields, short-ranged collisional or magnetic spin-spin interactions. The intracavity many-body lattice models often have to be maintained far from equilibrium through the presence of external driving lasers that help to boost and engineer the various interaction potentials. The steady influx of energy is compensated by a steady stream of energy out of the atom-cavity system for example by photon losses or atomic spontaneous emission. Several experiments have demonstrated that such environments can give rise to new competing quantum phases. \nBut this long-standing ambition to push for models with tailorable interaction potentials can bring with it also considerable challenges in their theoretical description, since sponta- neous symmetry breaking transitions in many body lattice systems coupled to dynamical light-fields with single-photon character occur in the presence of drive and dissipation for the photonic force carriers. This clearly calls for model systems where the above men- tioned interplay of interactions, drive, dissipation and cooperative many-body behaviour can be theoretically studied to provide simple, experimentally verifiable predictions. \nThe Dicke model is, through its simplicity (an exactly solved ferromagnet with infinite range atom-atom interactions mediated by a single cavity mode), an exceptionally well- suited candidate. As the generic model for atom-light interactions, it has been experimen- tally realized in a variety of modern quantum optical systems, highlighting its relevance for present-day research. The Dicke model is also highly versatile itself. It has been extended into the dissipative realm, was promoted to account for multiple optical light modes and was used to describe multiple, coupled single-mode cavity structures. It was adapted to treat spin-selective coupling to a cavity to describe superradiance phase tran- sitions in multi-level atomic systems. Moreover, it was realised in electronic circuits where the dipole coupling of real atoms to single mode fields is replaced by a capacitive cou- pling of artificial atoms to a resonator mode. This illustrates that the Dicke model and its extended variants are ’future-proof’ and continue to be of relevance for fundamental light-matter interactions and for driven-dissipative phase transitions. \nIn this thesis, we investigate magnetic phase transitions in driven-dissipative atomic en- sembles interacting with quantum light. We present three research projects on variants of cooperative radiation of an ensemble of laser driven two-level atoms in a single mode optical cavity, as described by the Dicke model. \nThroughout the chapters 2,3 and 4 that contain the main body of research of this thesis, we investigate phase transitions between non-equilibrium stationary states in engineered quantum-optical systems each of which extends the conventional Dicke model physics. As a starting point, we map the quantum equations of motion onto a set of semiclassical nonlinear stochastic equations and analyse their stationary states and instabilities with master equations for atomic spin and photon mean-field amplitudes. These are used to obtain experimentally relevant parameters such as critical atom-light couplings for phase transitions, phase diagrams and properties of stationary non-equilibrium states in addition to cavity output spectra that identify the imprint of magnetic correlations in the light-field. \nIn chapter 2, we help resolve a discrepancy between earlier experimental investigations of the critical atom-light coupling strength for the superradiance transition in the Dicke model: higher external pumping strengths than theoretically predicted were needed to observe a coherent, superradiant state of the light field in an optical cavity. By including incoherent spontaneous emission of atomic excitations, we extend the dissipative Dicke model to a two loss channel variant containing both photon leakage and atomic decay that reproduces the experimentally observed critical atom-light coupling. \nRecent experiments have started to interface quantum many body lattice models with coherent cavity fields, thereby allowing to realize new quantum phases through competing atom-cavity and atom-atom interactions. In chapter 3, we consider a simplified model for such a set-up where a single quantized mode of the light-field interacts with an ensemble of Rydberg-dressed atoms inside a high finesse optical cavity. This model provides a base case for further studies of quantum magnets in optical cavities. At the heart of this model is a competition of short- (dipolar atom-atom) and long-range (atom-light) interactions at the Hamiltonian level in the presence of both spontaneous emission and photon leak- age through the cavity mirrors. We show that different magnetic phases can coexist with coherent atomic radiation and provide clear experimental signatures to identify the mag- netic structure and intra-cavity dynamics. We suggest an experimental level-scheme for a quantum optical implementation of our model. \nIn chapter 4 we consider a generic, collective decay for many-body excitations in the paradigmatic Dicke model. This extension drastically enriches the dynamics as it induces a bicritical point and a bistable regime dominated by true non-equilibrium fluctuations that induce a dissipative first-order phase transition that can only be resolved by including finite fluctuation corrections with the help of stochastic Langevin equations. We investigate the hysteretic response to time-dependent ramps of the atom-light coupling. Discontinuous first-order phase transitions where metastable states coexist in a hysteresis domain have been investigated in recent dissipative quantum-optical experiments. We review noise- activation far from thermal equilibrium in chapter 5.
We propose a generalized system of nonequilibrium cavity QED with interacting dipoles coupled to a single-mode of an electromagnetic field in strong-, ultrastrong-, and deep-strong-coupling regimes. To illustrate the applicability of the system, an extended Dicke model is developed for atoms undergoing Raman transitions between the ground states in the presence of laser fields and considering dipole-dipole interactions; the latter has been neglected in many previous works. We have studied the effect of a ferroelectric and an antiferroelectric arrangement on the phase transition for both a finite and an infinite number of dipoles. An additional superradiant phase is observed in the deep-strong-coupling regime due to influence of the dipole-dipole interaction term. A high degree of dipole-dipole entanglement occurs for the antiferroelectric arrangement in the deep-strong regime, whereas it gets disentangled quite rapidly for the ferroelectric arrangement. A sharp transition of system parameters is observed in the ultrastrong-coupling regime and beyond. The dipole-dipole interaction also influences the spectra of the system, inducing a significant shift in the peaks, and modifies the average number of photons emitted.
Phase transitions of a generalized Dicke model in the Coulomb gauge-including A(2) terms in the matter-radiation coupling, as well as direct dipole-dipole interaction terms-are studied. After a brief review of previous work on the 'no-go theorem' for phase transitions in the Dicke model, it is shown that a consistent truncation of the radiation modes and of the direct interactions leads to a model that does have a phase transition. When transformed to the electric dipole gauge, such a system takes exactly the form of the original Dicke Hamiltonian, which displays the expected phase transition.