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arXiv:2404.15942

Squeezed Displaced Schrödinger-cat state as a signature of the PT-symmetry phase transition

Yuetao Chen, Shoukang Chang, Shaoyan Gao

Published Apr 24, 2024• 0 citations
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Abstract

Parity-time (PT ) symmetric systems are gain-loss systems whose dynamics are governed by non-Hermitian Hamiltonians with degeneracies at exceptional-points (EPs) and has been studied in various photonic, electrical, mechanical systems, and so on. However, it is still an open question how to capture PT symmetry phase transition in electronic system where the transport properties of electron will be dramatically effected. Fortunately, the hybridization between photon and electron offers a novel way not only to control but also probe material properties. Here, we investigate a cavity coupled to a non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) chain within mean-field ansatzs. We find that Squeezed Displaced Schrodinger cat (SDSc) will emerge with high fidelity in cavity ground state when PT -symmetry is broken and the fidelity will experience a sharp drop from almost 1 to 0 as PT symmetry recovers. Additionally, in semiclassical limit, we find that there exists local extrema at two sides of $x=0$ in semiclassical photon Hamiltonian $H_{\rm eff}(x, p)$, a clear signature of the emergence of SDSc state in cavity ground state. Thus, the appearance of SDSc state can be used to capture PT-symmetry phase transition which can not be modified by cavity mode. Besides, we exploit the cavity ground state to estimate the phase in the optical interferometer, and show that the quantum Fisher information and nonclassicality will sharply decline at EPs. This reveals that PT-symmetry breaking in electronic materials can also be captured by the quantum Fisher information and nonclassicality in phase estimation.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2404.15942

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Parity-time (PT ) symmetric systems are gain-loss systems whose dynamics are governed by non-Hermitian Hamiltonians with degeneracies at exceptional-points (EPs) and has been studied in various photonic, electrical, mechanical systems, and so on. However, it is still an open question how to capture PT symmetry phase transition in electronic system where the transport properties of electron will be dramatically effected. Fortunately, the hybridization between photon and electron offers a novel way not only to control but also probe material properties. Here, we investigate a cavity coupled to a non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) chain within mean-field ansatzs. We find that Squeezed Displaced Schrodinger cat (SDSc) will emerge with high fidelity in cavity ground state when PT -symmetry is broken and the fidelity will experience a sharp drop from almost 1 to 0 as PT symmetry recovers. Additionally, in semiclassical limit, we find that there exists local extrema at two sides of x=0x=0x=0 in semiclassical photon Hamiltonian Heff(x,p)H_{\rm eff}(x, p)Heff​(x,p), a clear signature of the emergence of SDSc state in cavity ground state. Thus, the appearance of SDSc state can be used to capture PT-symmetry phase transition which can not be modified by cavity mode. Besides, we exploit the cavity ground state to estimate the phase in the optical interferometer, and show that the quantum Fisher information and nonclassicality will sharply decline at EPs. This reveals that PT-symmetry breaking in electronic materials can also be captured by the quantum Fisher information and nonclassicality in phase estimation.
ABSTRACT Harnessing parity–time symmetry with balanced gain and loss profiles has created a variety of opportunities in an electronic system from wireless energy transfer to telemetry sensing and topological defect engineering. However, it is difficult to capture the ‐symmetry phase transition in an electronic system due to the limitation of probing the virtual energy spectrum. Here, we proposed a scheme to probe the ‐symmetry phase transition in an Non‐Hermitian (NH) Su–Schrieffer–Heeger (SSH) electronic chain coupled to a cavity. We show that, when ‐symmetry is broken, the cavity ground state is a Squeezed Displaced Schrödinger cat (SDSc) state, which immediately disappears when the symmetry recovers. Thus, our proposal provides a platform for capturing ‐symmetry phase transition based on cavity ground state. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the generation of the SDSc state in our scheme is related to spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanism. Besides, we exploit the cavity ground state to estimate the phase in the optical interferometer, and show that the quantum Fisher information and nonclassicality will sharply decline when symmetry recovers. This suggests that the phase estimation is preferably performed in the broken PT‐symmetry phase near the exceptional‐points. Our proposal offers a scheme not only to manipulate but also to probe the properties of electronic materials based on quantum Floquet engineering, and improve the utilization of cavity ground states in quantum metrology.
The fidelity susceptibility is a tool for studying quantum phase transitions in the Hermitian condensed matter systems. Recently, it has been generalized with the biorthogonal basis for the non-Hermitian quantum systems. From the general perturbation description with the constraint of parity-time (PT) symmetry, we show that the fidelity F is always real for the PT-unbroken states. For the PT-broken states, the real part of the fidelity susceptibility Re[XF] is corresponding to considering both the PT partner states, and the negative infinity is explored by the perturbation theory when the parameter approaches the exceptional point (EP). Moreover, at the second-order EP, we prove that the real part of the fidelity between PT-unbroken and PT-broken states is ReF=12 . Based on these general properties, we study the two-legged non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model and the non-Hermitian XXZ spin chain. We find that for both interacting and non-interacting systems, the real part of fidelity susceptibility density goes to negative infinity when the parameter approaches the EP, and verifies it is a second-order EP by ReF=12 .
Analysis of fundamentally open systems which exhibit both spatial reflection (parity) and time-reversal symmetry, called PT-symmetric [1] systems, has played an important role in understanding the dynamics of a broad class of non-Hermitian systems. Such systems support distinct regimes of stability and instability respectively, and the transition between these plays an important role in the system dynamics. We investigate a variety of non-Hermitian systems which exhibit a PT-symmetry breaking transition in both classical and quantum contexts using an array of theoretical and numerical approaches which are directly amenable to physical experiments. Organizationally, we divide these studies into those done on classical and quantum systems. Specifically for classical systems we analyze several interesting phenomena in the context of optical waveguide arrays. These provide an important testing ground for much of the discrete, PT-symmetric theory. In our case, we analyze PT-symmetric extensions of several interesting lattice models. Firstly, we explore single gain/loss pair, PT-symmetric extensions of the Su-Schreiffer-Heeger (SSH) model [2] and the Aubry-Andre-Harper (AAH) model [3,4]. In both cases, we find a veiled symmetry which is responsible for the PT-symmetry. Secondly we expand upon the Rudner-Levitov (RL) model [5,6], a non-Hermitian extension of the SSH model with multiple gain/loss pairs, and we explore the dependence of topological phenomena on changes in the initial state as well as their robustness in the presence of gain-induced nonlinearity. For quantum systems, we explore the rich PT-symmetric phase diagram resulting from time-periodic, Floquet PT-symmetry [7,8]. This is experimentally implementable in ultracold atomic systems [9], and features a reentrant PT-symmetric phase. Secondly, we examine quantum multi-photon statistics for a simple non-Hermitian model which is transformed and mapped to a system with unitary evolution via a unitary dilation, and is fully realizable on a small-scale quantum simulator [10].
Exceptional points (EPs) of a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian with parity-time-reversal (PT) symmetry have the potential to drastically enhance the capabilities of metrology and sensing through their power-law growing sensitivity to external perturbation. With the ability of generating and tuning dissipation in a single trapped ion system, we observe rich dynamics and detailed quantum phase transitions from the PT-symmetric phase to the symmetry-breaking phase. In this single qubit full quantum system, we develop a method to precisely determine the location of EP without any fitting parameter, and extract the eigenvalues in a unified way through all parameter regions. We can also obtain the full density matrix by quantum state tomography. Finally, we suggest from theoretical analysis that the periodically driving PT-symmetric non-Hermitian system can be used to measure the magnitude, frequency, and phase of time-dependent perturbation with EP enhancement.
The emergence of parity-time (PT) symmetry has greatly enriched our study of symmetry-enabled non-Hermitian physics, but the realization of quantum PT symmetry faces an intrinsic issue of unavoidable symmetry-breaking Langevin noises. Here we construct a quantum pseudo-anti-PT (pseudo-APT) symmetry in a two-mode bosonic system without involving Langevin noises. We show that the spontaneous pseudo-APT symmetry breaking leads to an exceptional point, across which there is a transition between different types of quantum squeezing dynamics; i.e., the squeezing factor increases exponentially (oscillates periodically) with time in the pseudo-APT-symmetric (broken) region. Such dramatic changes of squeezing factors and quantum dynamics near the exceptional point are utilized for ultraprecision quantum sensing. These exotic quantum phenomena and sensing applications can be experimentally observed in two physical systems: spontaneous wave mixing nonlinear optics and atomic Bose-Einstein condensates. Our Letter offers a physical platform for investigating exciting APT symmetry physics in the quantum realm, paving the way for exploring fundamental quantum non-Hermitian effects and their quantum technological applications.
We investigate a non-Hermitian quantum battery based on the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) lattice, charged through a parity-time (PT)-symmetric protocol that alternates gain and loss between the two sublattices. The interplay between lattice topology and non-Hermiticity gives rise to both bulk and edge exceptional points (EPs), which govern the charging dynamics. In the topological regime, an edge-state EP appears at a smaller gain-loss strength than the bulk thresholds and gives rise to an additional edge-broken regime absent in the trivial configuration. This topology-specific spectral structure is reflected in the charging dynamics, where the topological phase exhibits more favorable transient and long-time performance in the representative non-Hermitian regimes considered here. We further examine the corresponding Lindblad dynamics, identifying the non-Hermitian model as the conditional no-jump description of the same gain-loss processes. The Lindblad results show that the topological advantage remains visible at the level of stored energy, extractable work, and extractable fraction under unconditional open-system evolution. These findings demonstrate that topology constitutes a genuine physical resource for enhancing the performance of quantum batteries.