We show how the use of variational states to approximate the ground state of a system can be employed to study a multimode Dicke model. One of the main contributions of this work is the introduction of a not very commonly used quantity, the cooperation number, and the study of its influence on the behavior of the system, paying particular attention to the quantum phase transitions and the accuracy of the used approximations. We also show how these phase transitions affect the dependence of the expectation values of some of the observables relevant to the system and the entropy of entanglement with respect to the energy difference between atomic states and the coupling strength between matter and radiation, thus characterizing the transitions in different ways.
We show how the use of variational states to approximate the ground state of a system can be employed to study a multimode Dicke model. One of the main contributions of this work is the introduction of a not very commonly used quantity, the cooperation number, and the study of its influence on the behavior of the system, paying particular attention to the quantum phase transitions and the accuracy of the used approximations. We also show how these phase transitions affect the dependence of the expectation values of some of the observables relevant to the system and the entropy of entanglement with respect to the energy difference between atomic states and the coupling strength between matter and radiation, thus characterizing the transitions in different ways.
Dicke model describes a collective interaction between the two-level atoms and the light cavity and has been predicted to show a peculiar quantum phase transition, which is a second-order phase transition from a normal phase (in a weak-coupling strength) to a superradiant phase (in a strong-coupling strength). The model plays an important role in illustrating the quantum ground-state properties of many-body macroscopic quantum states. In the experiment, Dicke quantum phase transition in an open system could be formed by a Bose-Einstein condensate coupled to a high-finesse optical cavity. This experiment on the Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in the optical cavity have opened new frontiers, which could combine the cold atoms with quantum optics and makes it possible to enter into the strongly coupled regime of cavity quantum electrodynamics. In strong coupled regime, the atoms exchange the photons many times before spontaneous emission and cavity losses set in. It has become a hot research topic in recent years and plays an important role in many fields of modern physics, such as condensed matter physics, nuclear physics, etc. It can be applied to the manipulation of the geometric phase and entanglement in quantum information and computing. Quantum phase transition has been widely studied for the Dicke model as a typical example. Many different research methods about the mean-field approximation have been used to analyze the ground state properties of the Dicke model. In this paper, we study the ground state properties of two-component Bose-Einstein condensate in a single-mode cavity. Meanwhile, the associated quantum phase transition is described by the spin-coherent-state variational method, whose advantage is that the ground state energy and wave function can be obtained without the thermodynamic limit. By taking the average in the boson coherent state, we obtain an equivalent effective pesudospin Hamiltonian, which will be diagonalized by using the spin coherent state. Finally, we can obtain the energy functional, which is the basics of the variation to obtain the numerical solution of photon number and the expression of the atomic number and the ground state energy. This paper presents a rich phase diagram, which can be manipulated by changing the atom-field coupling imbalance between two components and the atom-field frequency detuning. While in the single-mode Dicke model there exist only the normal phase and the superradiation phase. When the frequency of one component atom is zero or the frequency of the two component atoms are equal in optical cavity, the system returns to the standard Dicke model, in which there occurs the second-order phase transition from the normal phase to the superradiant phase by adjusting the atom-field coupling. In conclusion, we discover that the stimulated radiation comes from the collective state of atomic population inversion, which does not exist in the single-mode Dicke model. Meanwhile, the new stimulated-radiation state S and S, which can only be produced by one component of the atom, are observed in the two-component Bose-Einstein condensates in the single-mode optical cavity. By adjusting the atom-field coupling imbalance and the atom-field frequency detuning (the blue or red detuning), the order of the superradiation state and the stimulated-radiation states can be exchanged between the two components of the atom.
Ground state properties and level statistics of the Dicke model for a finite number of atoms are investigated based on a progressive diagonalization scheme (PDS). Particle number statistics, the entanglement measure and the Shannon information entropy at the resonance point in cases with a finite number of atoms as functions of the coupling parameter are calculated. It is shown that the entanglement measure defined in terms of the normalized von Neumann entropy of the reduced density matrix of the atoms reaches its maximum value at the critical point of the quantum phase transition where the system is most chaotic. Noticeable change in the Shannon information entropy near or at the critical point of the quantum phase transition is also observed. In addition, the quantum phase transition may be observed not only in the ground state mean photon number and the ground state atomic inversion as shown previously, but also in fluctuations of these two quantities in the ground state, especially in the atomic inversion fluctuation.
We show how various mathematical formalisms, specifically the catastrophe formalism and group theory, aid in the study of relevant systems in quantum optics. We describe the phase transition of the Dicke model for a finite number N of atoms, via three different methods, which led to universal parametric curves for the expectation value of the first quadrature of the electromagnetic field and the expectation value of the number operator, as functions of the atomic relative population. These are valid for all values of the matter–field coupling parameter, and valid for both the ground and first-excited states. Using these mathematical tools, the critical value of the atom–field coupling parameter is found as a function of the number of atoms, from which its critical exponent is derived.
We study the phase transition properties of the ground state of the Dicke model by means of a variational procedure together with the catastrophe formalism.The proposed variational state is the tensorial product of the SU(2) and Weyl coherent states, and the expectation value of the Dicke Hamiltonian with respect this state is calculated.The stability properties of the energy surface exhibit a phase transition from the normal to the super-radiant behavior of the two-level atoms, when ωa ωF = ±4 γ 2 .At the same time, the analytic form of the ground state in terms of the minimum critical points of the system is obtained.The Dicke Hamiltonian is invariant under transformations of the point group C 2 = {I, exp (iπ Λ)}, with Λ the excitation number operator.To restore this parity symmetry, we separate the variational proposed states into orthogonal even and odd components, which give rise to analytic expressions for the ground and first excited states.The fidelity of these projected variational states is verified by studying their overlap with the exact quantum results.
The critical value of the atom-field coupling strength for a finite number of atoms is determined by means of both semiclassical and exact solutions. In the semiclassical approach we use a variational procedure with coherent and symmetry-adapted states, while for the exact quantum solution the concept of fidelity is employed. These procedures allow for the determination of the phase transitions in the model and coincide in the thermodynamic limit. For the three cases mentioned above, universal parametric curves are obtained for the expectation values of both the first quadrature of the electromagnetic field and the atomic relative population as implicit functions of the atom-field coupling parameter, valid for the ground and first-excited states.
Two-level atoms interacting with a one-mode cavity field at zero temperature have order parameters which reflect the presence of a quantum phase transition at a critical value of the atom–cavity coupling strength. Two popular examples are the number of photons inside the cavity and the number of excited atoms. Coherent states provide a mean field description, which becomes exact in the thermodynamic limit. Employing symmetry-adapted (SA) SU (2) coherent states the quantum crossover, precursor of the critical behavior, can be described for a finite number of atoms. A variation after projection treatment, involving a numerical minimization of the SA energy surface, associates the quantum crossover with a discontinuity in the order parameters, which originates from competition between two local minima in the SA energy surface. Although this discontinuity is not present in finite systems, it provides a good description of 1/ N effects in the observables.