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:1210.2318 · Physica Scripta

Thermal emission in the ultrastrong-coupling regime

A. Ridolfo, M Leib, Salvatore Savasta, M J Hartmann

Published Mar 1, 2013• 5 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We have studied the thermal emission of a cavity quantum electrodynamic system in the ultrastrong-coupling regime, where the atom–cavity coupling rate becomes comparable with the cavity resonance frequency. In this regime, the standard descriptions of photodetection and dissipation fail. By following an approach that was recently put forward by Ridolfo et al (2012 Phys. Rev. Lett. 109 193602), we were able to calculate the emission of systems with arbitrary strength of light–matter interaction, by expressing the electric-field operator in the cavity–emitter dressed basis. In this paper, we present thermal photoluminescence spectra, calculated for given temperatures and for different couplings, in particular, for available circuit quantum electrodynamics parameters.

DOI
10.1088/0031-8949/2013/t153/014053

Related papers

Cavity QED in the Ultrastrong Coupling Regime: Photon Bunching from the Emission of Individual Dressed Qubits

Luigi Garziano, A. Ridolfo, Simone De Liberato +1 more

Photon antibunching in the light scattered by single quantum emitters is one of the hallmarks of quantum optics, providing an unequivocal demonstration of the quantized nature of the electromagnetic field. Antibunching can be intuitively understood by the need for a two-level system lying in its lower state after emitting a photon to be re-excited into the upper one before a second emission can take place. Here we show that such a picture breaks down in the ultrastrong light–matter coupling regime, when the coupling strength becomes comparable to the bare emitter frequency. Specializing to the cases of both a natural and an artificial atom, we thus show that a single emitter coupled to a photonic resonator can emit bunched light. The result presented herein is clear evidence of how the ultrastrong coupling regime is able to change the nature of individual atoms.

ACS Photonics•Aug 24, 2017•39 citations

Regimes of cavity QED under incoherent excitation: From weak to deep strong coupling

Alberto Mercurio, Vincenzo Macrí, Chris Gustin +3 more

The prototypical system constituted by a two-level atom interacting with a quantized single-mode electromagnetic field is described by the quantum Rabi model (QRM). The QRM is potentially valid at any light-matter interaction regime, ranging from the weak (where the decay rates exceeds the coupling rate) to the deep strong coupling (where the interaction rate exceeds the bare transition frequencies of the subsystems). However, when reaching the ultrastrong coupling regime, several theoretical issues may prevent the correct description of the observable dynamics of such a system: (i) the standard quantum optics master equation fails to correctly describe the interaction of this system with the reservoirs; (ii) the correct output photon rate is no longer proportional to the intracavity photon number; and (iii) they appear to violate gauge invariance. Here, we study the photon flux emission rate of this system under the incoherent excitation of the two-level atom for any light-matter interaction strength and consider different effective temperatures. The dependence of the emission spectra on the coupling strength is the result of the interplay between energy levels, matrix elements of the observables, and the density of states of the reservoirs. Within this approach, we also study the occurrence of light-matter decoupling in the deep strong-coupling regime and show how all of the obtained results are gauge invariant.

arXiv:2112.08917•Physical Review Research•Apr 20, 2022•25 citations

Input-output theory of cavities in the ultrastrong coupling regime: The case of time-independent cavity parameters

Cristiano Ciuti, Iacopo Carusotto

We present a full quantum theory for the dissipative dynamics of an optical cavity in the ultrastrong light-matter coupling regime, in which the vacuum Rabi frequency is a significant fraction of the active electronic transition frequency and the antiresonant terms of the light-matter coupling play an important role. In particular, our model can be applied to the case of intersubband transitions in doped semiconductor quantum wells embedded in a microcavity. The coupling of the intracavity photonic mode and of the electronic polarization to the external, frequency-dependent, dissipation baths is taken into account by means of quantum Langevin equations in the input-output formalism. In the case of a time-independent vacuum Rabi frequency, exact analytical expressions for the operators are obtained, which allows us to characterize the quantum dissipative response of the cavity to an arbitrary initial condition (vacuum, coherent field, thermal excitation). For a vacuum input in both the photonic and electronic polarization modes, the ground state of the cavity system is a two-mode squeezed vacuum state with a finite population in both photonic and electronic modes. These excitations are, however, virtual and cannot escape from the cavity: for a vacuum input, a vacuum output is found, without any trace of the intracavity squeezing. For a coherent photonic input the linear optical response spectra (reflectivity, absorption, transmission) have been studied, and signatures of the ultrastrong coupling have been identified in the asymmetric and peculiar anticrossing of the polaritonic eigenmodes. Finally, we have calculated the electroluminescence spectra in the case of an incoherent electronic input: the emission intensity in the ultrastrong coupling regime results in being significantly enhanced as compared to the case of an isolated quantum well without a surrounding cavity.

arXiv:cond-mat/0606554•Physical Review A•Sep 18, 2006•283 citations

Quantum heat diode versus light emission in circuit quantum electrodynamical system

Yu‐qiang Liu, Yi‐jia Yang, Chang‐shui Yu

Precisely controlling heat transfer in a quantum mechanical system is particularly significant for designing quantum thermodynamical devices. With the technology of experiment advances, circuit quantum electrodynamics (circuit QED) has become a promising system due to controllable light-matter interactions as well as flexible coupling strengths. In this paper, we design a thermal diode in terms of the two-photon Rabi model of the circuit QED system. We find that the thermal diode can not only be realized in the resonant coupling but also achieve better performance, especially for the detuned qubit-photon ultrastrong coupling. We also study the photonic detection rates and their nonreciprocity, which indicate similar behaviors with the nonreciprocal heat transport. This provides the potential to understand thermal diode behavior from the quantum optical perspective and could shed new insight into the relevant research on thermodynamical devices.

arXiv:2304.01442•Physical review. E•Apr 24, 2023•11 citations

Recipe for the Hamiltonian of system-environment coupling applicable to the ultrastrong-light-matter-interaction regime

Motoaki Bamba, Tetsuo Ogawa

When the light interacts with matters in a lossy cavity, in the standard cavity quantum electrodynamics, the dissipation of cavity fields is characterized simply by the strengths of the two couplings: the light-matter interaction and the system-environment coupling through the cavity mirror. However, in the ultrastrong-light-matter-interaction regime, the dissipation depends also on whether the two couplings are mediated by the electric field or the magnetic one (capacitive or inductive in superconducting circuits). Even if we know correctly the microscopic mechanism (Lagrangian) of the system-environment coupling, the coupling Hamiltonian itself is in principle modified due to the ultrastrong interaction in the cavity. In this paper, we show a recipe for deriving a general expression of the Hamiltonian of the system-environment coupling, which is applicable even in the ultrastrong-light-matter-interaction regime in the good-cavity and independent-transition limits.

arXiv:1306.2099•Physical Review A•Feb 13, 2014•47 citations

Comment on “System-environment coupling derived by Maxwell's boundary conditions from the weak to the ultrastrong light-matter-coupling regime”

Simone De Liberato

In a recent paper, Bamba and Ogawa [Phys. Rev. A 88, 013814 (2013)] developed a microscopic model describing a photonic cavity coupled to an excitonlike resonance. One of the results they obtained studying such a model is that, in the ultrastrong coupling regime, dissipation rates calculated applying the rotating-wave approximation on the system-environment coupling qualitatively differ from the ones calculated using a microscopic theory based on the quantum electrodynamics for dielectric media. Here I show that this result is an artifact, caused by an inconsistent application of the rotating-wave approximation and by an unphysical parameter choice.

arXiv:1307.5615•Physical Review A•Jan 6, 2014•20 citations
We have studied the thermal emission of a cavity quantum electrodynamic system in the ultrastrong-coupling regime, where the atom–cavity coupling rate becomes comparable with the cavity resonance frequency. In this regime, the standard descriptions of photodetection and dissipation fail. By following an approach that was recently put forward by Ridolfo et al (2012 Phys. Rev. Lett. 109 193602), we were able to calculate the emission of systems with arbitrary strength of light–matter interaction, by expressing the electric-field operator in the cavity–emitter dressed basis. In this paper, we present thermal photoluminescence spectra, calculated for given temperatures and for different couplings, in particular, for available circuit quantum electrodynamics parameters.
Photon antibunching in the light scattered by single quantum emitters is one of the hallmarks of quantum optics, providing an unequivocal demonstration of the quantized nature of the electromagnetic field. Antibunching can be intuitively understood by the need for a two-level system lying in its lower state after emitting a photon to be re-excited into the upper one before a second emission can take place. Here we show that such a picture breaks down in the ultrastrong light–matter coupling regime, when the coupling strength becomes comparable to the bare emitter frequency. Specializing to the cases of both a natural and an artificial atom, we thus show that a single emitter coupled to a photonic resonator can emit bunched light. The result presented herein is clear evidence of how the ultrastrong coupling regime is able to change the nature of individual atoms.
The prototypical system constituted by a two-level atom interacting with a quantized single-mode electromagnetic field is described by the quantum Rabi model (QRM). The QRM is potentially valid at any light-matter interaction regime, ranging from the weak (where the decay rates exceeds the coupling rate) to the deep strong coupling (where the interaction rate exceeds the bare transition frequencies of the subsystems). However, when reaching the ultrastrong coupling regime, several theoretical issues may prevent the correct description of the observable dynamics of such a system: (i) the standard quantum optics master equation fails to correctly describe the interaction of this system with the reservoirs; (ii) the correct output photon rate is no longer proportional to the intracavity photon number; and (iii) they appear to violate gauge invariance. Here, we study the photon flux emission rate of this system under the incoherent excitation of the two-level atom for any light-matter interaction strength and consider different effective temperatures. The dependence of the emission spectra on the coupling strength is the result of the interplay between energy levels, matrix elements of the observables, and the density of states of the reservoirs. Within this approach, we also study the occurrence of light-matter decoupling in the deep strong-coupling regime and show how all of the obtained results are gauge invariant.
We present a full quantum theory for the dissipative dynamics of an optical cavity in the ultrastrong light-matter coupling regime, in which the vacuum Rabi frequency is a significant fraction of the active electronic transition frequency and the antiresonant terms of the light-matter coupling play an important role. In particular, our model can be applied to the case of intersubband transitions in doped semiconductor quantum wells embedded in a microcavity. The coupling of the intracavity photonic mode and of the electronic polarization to the external, frequency-dependent, dissipation baths is taken into account by means of quantum Langevin equations in the input-output formalism. In the case of a time-independent vacuum Rabi frequency, exact analytical expressions for the operators are obtained, which allows us to characterize the quantum dissipative response of the cavity to an arbitrary initial condition (vacuum, coherent field, thermal excitation). For a vacuum input in both the photonic and electronic polarization modes, the ground state of the cavity system is a two-mode squeezed vacuum state with a finite population in both photonic and electronic modes. These excitations are, however, virtual and cannot escape from the cavity: for a vacuum input, a vacuum output is found, without any trace of the intracavity squeezing. For a coherent photonic input the linear optical response spectra (reflectivity, absorption, transmission) have been studied, and signatures of the ultrastrong coupling have been identified in the asymmetric and peculiar anticrossing of the polaritonic eigenmodes. Finally, we have calculated the electroluminescence spectra in the case of an incoherent electronic input: the emission intensity in the ultrastrong coupling regime results in being significantly enhanced as compared to the case of an isolated quantum well without a surrounding cavity.
Precisely controlling heat transfer in a quantum mechanical system is particularly significant for designing quantum thermodynamical devices. With the technology of experiment advances, circuit quantum electrodynamics (circuit QED) has become a promising system due to controllable light-matter interactions as well as flexible coupling strengths. In this paper, we design a thermal diode in terms of the two-photon Rabi model of the circuit QED system. We find that the thermal diode can not only be realized in the resonant coupling but also achieve better performance, especially for the detuned qubit-photon ultrastrong coupling. We also study the photonic detection rates and their nonreciprocity, which indicate similar behaviors with the nonreciprocal heat transport. This provides the potential to understand thermal diode behavior from the quantum optical perspective and could shed new insight into the relevant research on thermodynamical devices.
When the light interacts with matters in a lossy cavity, in the standard cavity quantum electrodynamics, the dissipation of cavity fields is characterized simply by the strengths of the two couplings: the light-matter interaction and the system-environment coupling through the cavity mirror. However, in the ultrastrong-light-matter-interaction regime, the dissipation depends also on whether the two couplings are mediated by the electric field or the magnetic one (capacitive or inductive in superconducting circuits). Even if we know correctly the microscopic mechanism (Lagrangian) of the system-environment coupling, the coupling Hamiltonian itself is in principle modified due to the ultrastrong interaction in the cavity. In this paper, we show a recipe for deriving a general expression of the Hamiltonian of the system-environment coupling, which is applicable even in the ultrastrong-light-matter-interaction regime in the good-cavity and independent-transition limits.
In a recent paper, Bamba and Ogawa [Phys. Rev. A 88, 013814 (2013)] developed a microscopic model describing a photonic cavity coupled to an excitonlike resonance. One of the results they obtained studying such a model is that, in the ultrastrong coupling regime, dissipation rates calculated applying the rotating-wave approximation on the system-environment coupling qualitatively differ from the ones calculated using a microscopic theory based on the quantum electrodynamics for dielectric media. Here I show that this result is an artifact, caused by an inconsistent application of the rotating-wave approximation and by an unphysical parameter choice.