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arXiv:2011.11171 · Physical Review Letters

Quantum Phases in a Quantum Rabi Triangle

Yuyu Zhang, Zi-Xiang Hu, Libin Fu, Hong‐Gang Luo, Han Pu, Xue‐Feng Zhang

Published Aug 2, 2021• 67 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The interplay of interactions, symmetries, and gauge fields usually leads to intriguing quantum many-body phases. To explore the nature of emerging phases, we study a quantum Rabi triangle system as an elementary building block for synthesizing an artificial magnetic field. We develop an analytical approach to study the rich phase diagram and the associated quantum criticality. Of particular interest is the emergence of a chiral-coherent phase, which breaks both the Z_{2} and the chiral symmetry. In this chiral phase, photons flow unidirectionally and the chirality can be tuned by the artificial gauge field, exhibiting a signature of broken time-reversal symmetry. The finite-frequency scaling analysis further confirms the associated phase transition to be in the universality class of the Dicke model. This model can simulate a broad range of physical phenomena of light-matter coupling systems, and may have an application in future developments of various quantum information technologies.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.127.063602

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The interplay of interactions, symmetries, and gauge fields usually leads to intriguing quantum many-body phases. To explore the nature of emerging phases, we study a quantum Rabi triangle system as an elementary building block for synthesizing an artificial magnetic field. We develop an analytical approach to study the rich phase diagram and the associated quantum criticality. Of particular interest is the emergence of a chiral-coherent phase, which breaks both the Z_{2} and the chiral symmetry. In this chiral phase, photons flow unidirectionally and the chirality can be tuned by the artificial gauge field, exhibiting a signature of broken time-reversal symmetry. The finite-frequency scaling analysis further confirms the associated phase transition to be in the universality class of the Dicke model. This model can simulate a broad range of physical phenomena of light-matter coupling systems, and may have an application in future developments of various quantum information technologies.
The quantum fluctuations of a quantum Rabi triangle are investigated using an analytical method that goes beyond mean-field theory. An artificial magnetic field applied in three cavities leads to the breaking of time-reversal symmetry, which is evident in the directional transfer of photons. In contrast to previous studies, we focus on the scaling exponents of quantum fluctuations of the local photon number and the position variance near the critical point. Specifically, the fluctuations of photons do not diverge as the coupling strength approaches the critical value from below for the chiral superradiant phase transition. Attributing to geometric frustration, two distinct scaling laws arise for the frustrated cavity and the remaining cavities. Specifically, in the frustrated cavity, the scaling exponent in the chiral superradiant phase differs from that without an artificial magnetic field for the frustrated antiferromagnetic superradiant phase. The unusual scaling exponents indicate distinct universality classes in contrast to the single-cavity Rabi one. We suggest that accurate critical exponents in few-body systems are useful for identifying exotic quantum phase transitions in light-matter coupling systems.
The Dicke model (DM) serves as a paradigm for understanding collective light-matter interactions. We introduce the chiral Dicke model, a generalization where an atomic ensemble couples to a two-mode cavity via chiral interactions. Unlike the standard DM, the chiral DM is endowed with an inherent continuous U(1)U(1)U(1) symmetry associated with angular momentum conservation. The ground-state phase diagram and the associated quantum phase transitions are charted out, revealing a U(1)U(1)U(1)-broken superradiant phase that spans a broad parameter space. We demonstrate that the spectrum of quantum fluctuations is highly tunable in both the symmetric and broken phases. Strikingly, our calculations reveal that the system exhibits `multiversality', where distinct universality classes govern the transition between the same two phases. In particular, along a special line in parameter space, the dynamical critical exponent for the normal-superradiant phase transition changes from zν=1zν=1zν=1 to zν=1/2zν=1/2zν=1/2. Our work establishes the chiral Dicke model as a powerful platform to realize novel quantum phases and multiversal critical phenomena in light-matter coupled systems.
We present exotic quantum phases in a quantum Rabi hexagonal ring. A remarkable finding is that the application of an artificial magnetic field to the ring induces long-range interactions, yielding effective next-nearest-neighbor photon hopping in the subrings. This phenomenon gives rise to two chiral superradiant phases in addition to a ferro-superradiant and an antiferro-superradiant phase. As evidence, there appear chiral ground-state currents of photons in the subrings with opposite signs in different chiral phases. The degenerate configurations of the complex order parameters in chiral phases are similar to the in-plane magnetizations of a chiral magnetic. The critical exponents governing the excitation energy in the two chiral phases are identical to those of the Rabi triangle, which depend on the size of the subrings rather than the size of the ring. It is important to classify the universality class of the multiple chiral phase transitions as the size of Rabi ring increases. Furthermore, the implementation of the proposed system is an exciting prospect in quantum simulations for exploring intriguing quantum phases.
Systems of strongly interacting atoms and photons, which can be realized wiring up individual cavity QED systems into lattices, are perceived as a new platform for quantum simulation. While sharing important properties with other systems of interacting quantum particles, here we argue that the nature of light-matter interaction gives rise to unique features with no analogs in condensed matter or atomic physics setups. By discussing the physics of a lattice model of delocalized photons coupled locally with two-level systems through the elementary light-matter interaction described by the Rabi model, we argue that the inclusion of counterrotating terms, so far neglected, is crucial to stabilize finite-density quantum phases of correlated photons out of the vacuum, with no need for an artificially engineered chemical potential. We show that the competition between photon delocalization and Rabi nonlinearity drives the system across a novel Z(2) parity symmetry-breaking quantum criticality between two gapped phases that share similarities with the Dicke transition of quantum optics and the Ising critical point of quantum magnetism. We discuss the phase diagram as well as the low-energy excitation spectrum and present analytic estimates for critical quantities.
Abstract The existence of quantum tricriticality and exotic phases are found in a tricritical Dicke triangle (TDT) where three cavities, each one containing an ensemble of three-level atoms, are connected to each other through the action of an artificial magnetic field. The conventional superradiant phase (SR) is connected to the normal phase through first- and second-order boundaries, with tricritical points located at the intersection of such boundaries. Apart from the SR phase, a chiral superradiant (CSR) phase is found by tuning the artificial magnetic field. This phase is characterized by a nonzero photon current and its boundary presents chiral tricritical points (CTCPs). Through the study of different critical exponents, we are able to differentiate the universality class of the CTCP and TCP from that of second-order critical points, as well as find distinctive critical behavior among the two different superradiant phases. The TDT can be implemented in various systems, including atoms in optical cavities as well as the circuit QED system, allowing the exploration of a great variety of critical manifolds.
We investigate the critical phenomena of the asymmetric quantum Rabi model (AQRM), where parity symmetry is broken by an external bias. Through both analytical and numerical calculations, we identify second-order and first-order phase transitions, with the latter absent in the standard quantum Rabi model. We derive an analytical two-variable scaling function that describes the finite-frequency scaling behavior of the AQRM, and numerical results confirm this framework. The introduction of bias leads to additional critical exponents, including a bias-related critical exponent ν_{h} and susceptibility exponent γ. Moreover, we demonstrate that critical scaling persists even below the conventional critical coupling, indicating the emergence of field-induced quantum criticality. These findings establish a robust theoretical framework for understanding universal quantum criticality in light-matter systems.