We report on a nonequilibrium quantum phase transition (NQPT) in a hybrid quantum many-body system consisting of a vibrational mode of a damped nanomembrane interacting optomechanically with a cavity, whose output light couples to two internal states of an ultracold Bose gas held in an external quasi-one-dimensional box potential. For small effective membrane-atom couplings, the system is in a homogeneous Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) steady state, with no membrane displacement. Depending on the transition frequency between the two internal atomic states, either one or both internal states are occupied. By increasing the atom-membrane couplings, the system transitions to a symmetry-broken self-organized BEC phase, which is characterized by a considerably displaced membrane steady-state and density-wave-like BEC profiles. This NQPT can be both discontinuous and continuous for a certain interval of transition frequencies and is purely discontinuous outside of it. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
We report on a nonequilibrium quantum phase transition (NQPT) in a hybrid quantum many-body system consisting of a vibrational mode of a damped nanomembrane interacting optomechanically with a cavity, whose output light couples to two internal states of an ultracold Bose gas held in an external quasi-one-dimensional box potential. For small effective membrane-atom couplings, the system is in a homogeneous Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) steady state, with no membrane displacement. Depending on the transition frequency between the two internal atomic states, either one or both internal states are occupied. By increasing the atom-membrane couplings, the system transitions to a symmetry-broken self-organized BEC phase, which is characterized by a considerably displaced membrane steady-state and density-wave-like BEC profiles. This NQPT can be both discontinuous and continuous for a certain interval of transition frequencies and is purely discontinuous outside of it. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Abstract We show that a hybrid atom-optomechanical quantum many-body system with two internal atom states undergoes both first- and second-order nonequilibrium quantum phase transitions (NQPTs). A nanomembrane is placed in a pumped optical cavity, whose outcoupled light forms a lattice for an ultracold Bose gas. By changing the pump strength, the effective membrane-atom coupling can be tuned. Above a critical intensity, a symmetry-broken phase emerges which is characterized by a sizeable occupation of the high-energy internal states and a displaced membrane. The order of this NQPT can be changed by tuning the transition frequency. For a symmetric coupling, the transition is continuous below a certain transition frequency and discontinuous above. For an asymmetric coupling, a first-order phase transition occurs.
We consider a hybrid quantum many-body system formed by a vibrational mode of a nanomembrane, which interacts optomechanically with light in a cavity, and an ultracold atom gas in the optical lattice of the out-coupled light. The adiabatic elimination of the light field yields an effective Hamiltonian which reveals a competition between the force localizing the atoms and the membrane displacement. At a critical atom-membrane interaction, we find a nonequilibrium quantum phase transition from a localized symmetric state of the atom cloud to a shifted symmetry-broken state, the energy of the lowest collective excitation vanishes, and a strong atom-membrane entanglement arises. The effect occurs when the atoms and the membrane are nonresonantly coupled.
Recently, a novel kind of hybrid atom-optomechanical system, consisting of atoms in a lattice coupled to a membrane, has been experimentally realized [A. Vochezer et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 073602 (2018)], which promises a viable contender in the competitive field of simulating nonequilibrium many-body physics. Here we are motivated to investigate a spinor Bose gas coupled to a vibrational mode of a nanomembrane, focusing on analyzing the role of the spinor degrees of freedom therein. Through an adiabatic elimination of the degrees of freedom of the quantum oscillator, we derive an effective Hamiltonian which reveals a competition between the force localizing the atoms and the membrane displacement. We analyze the dynamical stability of the steady state using the Bogoliubov--de Gennes approach and derive the stationary phase diagram in the parameter space. Then, we investigate the first-order nonequilibrium quantum phase transition (NQPT) from a localized symmetric state of the atom cloud to a shifted symmetry-broken state, characterized by the occurrence of a hysteresis. Moreover we present a detailed analysis of the effects of the spin degree of freedom on NQPT. Our work presents a simple way to study the effects of the spinor degree of freedom on the nonequilibrium nonlinear phenomena that is complementary to ongoing experiments on the hybrid atom-optomechanical system.
In a recent experiment [A. Vochezer, T. Kampschulte, K. Hammerer, and P. Treutlein, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 073602 (2018)], a novel kind of hybrid atom-optomechanical system has been realized by coupling atoms in a lattice to a membrane. While such a system promises a viable contender in the competitive field of simulating nonequilibrium many-body physics, its complete steady-state phase diagram is still lacking. Here we study the phase diagram of this hybrid system based on an atomic Bose-Hubbard model coupled to a quantum harmonic oscillator. We take both the expectation value of the bosonic operator and the mechanical motion of the membrane as order parameters and thereby identify four different quantum phases. Importantly, we find the atomic gas in the steady state of such a nonequilibrium setting undergoes a superfluid--Mott-insulator transition when the atom-membrane coupling is tuned to increase. Such a steady-state phase transition can be seen as the nonequilibrium counterpart of the conventional superfluid--Mott-insulator transition in the ground state of the Bose-Hubbard model. Further, no matter which phase the quantum gas is in, the mechanic motion of the membrane exhibits a transition from an incoherent vibration to a coherent one when the atom-membrane coupling increases, agreeing with the experimental observations. Our present study provides a simple way to study nonequilibrium many-body physics that is complementary to ongoing experiments on the hybrid atomic and optomechanical systems.
We consider a hybrid atom-optomechanical system consisting of a mechanical membrane inside an optical cavity and an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate outside the cavity. The condensate is confined in an optical lattice potential formed by a traveling laser beam reflected off one cavity mirror. We derive the cavity-mediated effective atom-atom interaction potential and find that it is nonuniform, site-dependent, and does not decay as the interatomic distance increases. We show that the presence of this effective interaction breaks the Z2 symmetry of the system and gives rise to new quantum phases and phase transitions. When the long-range interaction dominates, the condensate breaks the translation symmetry and turns into a novel self-organized latticelike state with increasing particle densities for sites farther away from the cavity. We present the phase diagram of the system and investigate the stabilities of different phases by calculating their respective excitation spectra. The system can serve as a platform to explore various self-organized phenomena induced by the long-range interactions.
The self-organization of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a transversely pumped optical cavity is a process akin to crystallization: when pumped by a laser of sufficient intensity, the coupled matter and light fields evolve, spontaneously, into a spatially modulated pattern, or crystal, whose lattice structure is dictated by the geometry of the cavity. In cavities having multiple degenerate modes, the quasicontinuum of possible lattice arrangements, and the continuous symmetry breaking associated with the adoption of a particular lattice arrangement, give rise to phenomena such as phonons, defects, and frustration, which have hitherto been unexplored in ultracold atomic settings involving neutral atoms. The present work develops a nonequilibrium field-theoretic approach to explore the self-organization of a BEC in a pumped, lossy optical cavity. We find that the transition is well described, in the regime of primary interest, by an effective equilibrium theory. At nonzero temperatures, the self-organization occurs via a fluctuation-driven first-order phase transition of the Brazovskii class; this transition persists to zero temperature and crosses over into a quantum phase transition. We make further use of our field-theoretic description to investigate the role of nonequilibrium fluctuations in the self-organization transition, as well as to explore the nucleation of ordered-phase droplets, the nature and energetics of topological defects, supersolidity in the ordered phase, and the possibility of frustration controlled by the cavity geometry. In addition, we discuss the range of experimental parameters for which we expect the phenomena described here to be observable, along with possible schemes for detecting ordering and fluctuations via either atomic correlations or the correlations of the light emitted from the cavity.