Quantum spin models with a large number of interaction partners per spin are frequently used to describe modern many-body quantum optical systems such as arrays of Rydberg atoms, atom-cavity systems, or trapped ion crystals. For theoretical analysis the mean-field (MF) ansatz is routinely applied. However, besides special cases of all-to-all or strong long-range interactions, the MF ansatz provides only approximate results. Here we present a systematic correction to MF theory based on diagrammatic perturbation theory for quantum spin correlators in thermal equilibrium. Our analytic results are universally applicable for any lattice geometry and spin-length $S$. We provide precomputed and easy-to-use building blocks for Ising, Heisenberg and transverse field Ising models in the symmetry-unbroken regime. We showcase the quality and simplicity of the method by computing magnetic phase boundaries and excitations gaps. We also treat the Dicke-Ising model of ground-state superradiance where we show that corrections to the MF phase boundary vanish.
Quantum spin models with a large number of interaction partners per spin are frequently used to describe modern many-body quantum optical systems such as arrays of Rydberg atoms, atom-cavity systems, or trapped ion crystals. For theoretical analysis the mean-field (MF) ansatz is routinely applied. However, besides special cases of all-to-all or strong long-range interactions, the MF ansatz provides only approximate results. Here we present a systematic correction to MF theory based on diagrammatic perturbation theory for quantum spin correlators in thermal equilibrium. Our analytic results are universally applicable for any lattice geometry and spin-length S. We provide precomputed and easy-to-use building blocks for Ising, Heisenberg and transverse field Ising models in the symmetry-unbroken regime. We showcase the quality and simplicity of the method by computing magnetic phase boundaries and excitations gaps. We also treat the Dicke-Ising model of ground-state superradiance where we show that corrections to the MF phase boundary vanish.
Abstract Quantum Ising models are canonical models for the study of quantum phase transitions (Sachdev 1999 Quantum Phase Transitions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)) and are the underlying concept for many analogue quantum computing and quantum annealing ideas (Tanaka et al Quantum Spin Glasses, Annealing and Computation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)). Here we focus on the implementation of finite-range interacting Ising spin models, which are barely tractable numerically. Recent experiments with cold atoms have reached the interaction-dominated regime in quantum Ising magnets via optical coupling of trapped neutral atoms to Rydberg states. This approach allows for the tunability of all relevant terms in an Ising spin Hamiltonian with 1 / r 6 interactions in transverse and longitudinal fields. This review summarizes the recent progress of these implementations in Rydberg lattices with site-resolved detection. Strong correlations in quantum Ising models have been observed in several experiments, starting from a single excitation in the superatom regime up to the point of crystallization. The rapid progress in this field makes spin systems based on Rydberg atoms a promising platform for quantum simulation because of the unmatched flexibility and strength of interactions combined with high control and good isolation from the environment.
Present-day experiments have started to couple traditional simulations of ultracold atom experiments with quantum light-fields in cavities. This has provided a wealth of op- portunities to enlarge the number of interaction potentials: cavity mediated long-range interactions compete with kinetic energies, longitudinal fields, short-ranged collisional or magnetic spin-spin interactions. The intracavity many-body lattice models often have to be maintained far from equilibrium through the presence of external driving lasers that help to boost and engineer the various interaction potentials. The steady influx of energy is compensated by a steady stream of energy out of the atom-cavity system for example by photon losses or atomic spontaneous emission. Several experiments have demonstrated that such environments can give rise to new competing quantum phases. \nBut this long-standing ambition to push for models with tailorable interaction potentials can bring with it also considerable challenges in their theoretical description, since sponta- neous symmetry breaking transitions in many body lattice systems coupled to dynamical light-fields with single-photon character occur in the presence of drive and dissipation for the photonic force carriers. This clearly calls for model systems where the above men- tioned interplay of interactions, drive, dissipation and cooperative many-body behaviour can be theoretically studied to provide simple, experimentally verifiable predictions. \nThe Dicke model is, through its simplicity (an exactly solved ferromagnet with infinite range atom-atom interactions mediated by a single cavity mode), an exceptionally well- suited candidate. As the generic model for atom-light interactions, it has been experimen- tally realized in a variety of modern quantum optical systems, highlighting its relevance for present-day research. The Dicke model is also highly versatile itself. It has been extended into the dissipative realm, was promoted to account for multiple optical light modes and was used to describe multiple, coupled single-mode cavity structures. It was adapted to treat spin-selective coupling to a cavity to describe superradiance phase tran- sitions in multi-level atomic systems. Moreover, it was realised in electronic circuits where the dipole coupling of real atoms to single mode fields is replaced by a capacitive cou- pling of artificial atoms to a resonator mode. This illustrates that the Dicke model and its extended variants are ’future-proof’ and continue to be of relevance for fundamental light-matter interactions and for driven-dissipative phase transitions. \nIn this thesis, we investigate magnetic phase transitions in driven-dissipative atomic en- sembles interacting with quantum light. We present three research projects on variants of cooperative radiation of an ensemble of laser driven two-level atoms in a single mode optical cavity, as described by the Dicke model. \nThroughout the chapters 2,3 and 4 that contain the main body of research of this thesis, we investigate phase transitions between non-equilibrium stationary states in engineered quantum-optical systems each of which extends the conventional Dicke model physics. As a starting point, we map the quantum equations of motion onto a set of semiclassical nonlinear stochastic equations and analyse their stationary states and instabilities with master equations for atomic spin and photon mean-field amplitudes. These are used to obtain experimentally relevant parameters such as critical atom-light couplings for phase transitions, phase diagrams and properties of stationary non-equilibrium states in addition to cavity output spectra that identify the imprint of magnetic correlations in the light-field. \nIn chapter 2, we help resolve a discrepancy between earlier experimental investigations of the critical atom-light coupling strength for the superradiance transition in the Dicke model: higher external pumping strengths than theoretically predicted were needed to observe a coherent, superradiant state of the light field in an optical cavity. By including incoherent spontaneous emission of atomic excitations, we extend the dissipative Dicke model to a two loss channel variant containing both photon leakage and atomic decay that reproduces the experimentally observed critical atom-light coupling. \nRecent experiments have started to interface quantum many body lattice models with coherent cavity fields, thereby allowing to realize new quantum phases through competing atom-cavity and atom-atom interactions. In chapter 3, we consider a simplified model for such a set-up where a single quantized mode of the light-field interacts with an ensemble of Rydberg-dressed atoms inside a high finesse optical cavity. This model provides a base case for further studies of quantum magnets in optical cavities. At the heart of this model is a competition of short- (dipolar atom-atom) and long-range (atom-light) interactions at the Hamiltonian level in the presence of both spontaneous emission and photon leak- age through the cavity mirrors. We show that different magnetic phases can coexist with coherent atomic radiation and provide clear experimental signatures to identify the mag- netic structure and intra-cavity dynamics. We suggest an experimental level-scheme for a quantum optical implementation of our model. \nIn chapter 4 we consider a generic, collective decay for many-body excitations in the paradigmatic Dicke model. This extension drastically enriches the dynamics as it induces a bicritical point and a bistable regime dominated by true non-equilibrium fluctuations that induce a dissipative first-order phase transition that can only be resolved by including finite fluctuation corrections with the help of stochastic Langevin equations. We investigate the hysteretic response to time-dependent ramps of the atom-light coupling. Discontinuous first-order phase transitions where metastable states coexist in a hysteresis domain have been investigated in recent dissipative quantum-optical experiments. We review noise- activation far from thermal equilibrium in chapter 5.
We analyze the ground-state phase diagram of attractive lattice bosons, which are stabilized by a three-body onsite hardcore constraint. A salient feature of this model is an Ising-type transition from a conventional atomic superfluid to a dimer superfluid with vanishing atomic condensate. The study builds on an exact mapping of the constrained model to a theory of coupled bosons with polynomial interactions, proposed in a related paper [S. Diehl, M. Baranov, A. Daley, and P. Zoller, Phys. Rev. B 82, 064509 (2010).]. In this framework, we focus by analytical means on aspects of the phase diagram which are intimately connected to interactions, and are thus not accessible in a mean-field plus spin-wave approach. First, we determine shifts in the mean-field phase border, which are most pronounced in the low-density regime. Second, the investigation of the strong coupling limit reveals the existence of a ``continuous supersolid,'' which emerges as a consequence of enhanced symmetries in this regime. We discuss its experimental signatures. Third, we show that the Ising-type phase transition, driven first order via the competition of long-wavelength modes at generic fillings, terminates into a true Ising quantum critical point in the vicinity of half filling.
The mean-field approximation is at the heart of our understanding of complex systems, despite its fundamental limitation of completely neglecting correlations between the elementary constituents. In a recent work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 130401 (2016)], we have shown that in quantum many-body systems at finite temperature, two-point correlations can be formally separated into a thermal part and a quantum part and that quantum correlations are generically found to decay exponentially at finite temperature, with a characteristic, temperature-dependent quantum coherence length. The existence of these two different forms of correlation in quantum many-body systems suggests the possibility of formulating an approximation, which affects quantum correlations only, without preventing the correct description of classical fluctuations at all length scales. Focusing on lattice boson and quantum Ising models, we make use of the path-integral formulation of quantum statistical mechanics to introduce such an approximation, which we dub quantum mean-field (QMF) approach, and which can be readily generalized to a cluster form (cluster QMF or cQMF). The cQMF approximation reduces to cluster mean-field theory at T=0, while at any finite temperature it produces a family of systematically improved, semi-classical approximations to the quantum statistical mechanics of the lattice theory at hand. Contrary to standard MF approximations, the correct nature of thermal critical phenomena is captured by any cluster size. In the two exemplary cases of the two-dimensional quantum Ising model and of two-dimensional quantum rotors, we study systematically the convergence of the cQMF approximation towards the exact result, and show that the convergence is typically linear or sublinear in the boundary-to-bulk ratio of the clusters as $T\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$, while it becomes faster than linear as T grows. These results pave the way towards the development of semiclassical numerical approaches based on an approximate, yet systematically improved account of quantum correlations.
The dissipative phase transitions in the open transverse and longitudinal Dicke-Ising model (DIM), which incorporates nearest-neighbor Ising-type spin interactions into the Dicke framework, are investigated within a mean-field approach and further validated by detailed stability analysis. While the dissipative phase diagram of the transverse DIM is only slightly shifted upward compared with its ground-state counterpart, dissipation in the longitudinal DIM stabilizes bistable nonequilibrium steady states and induces first-order phase transitions that are absent in the ground-state phase diagram. This bistable phase is characterized by the coexistence of superradiant and antiferromagnetic orders, and it converts a ground-state triple point into a tetracritical point, at which the boundaries of the first- and second-order transitions intersect. Our results reveal that the interplay among spin interactions, light-matter coupling, and dissipation supports a diverse set of nonequilibrium phase transitions and provides broad tunability of the phase diagram. These findings offer a theoretical foundation for exploring nonequilibrium physics in realistic open solid-state quantum systems.
The quantum Ising model is perhaps the simplest possible model of a quantum magnetic material. Despite its simplicity, its versatility and wide range of applications, from quantum computation, to combinatorial optimization, to biophysics, make it one of the most important models of modern physics. In this thesis, we develop a general framework for studying quantum Ising systems with an arbitrary single ion Hamiltonian, with emphasis on the effects of quantum fluctuations, and the quantum phase transition between paramagnetic and ferromagnetic states that occurs when a magnetic field is applied transverse to the easy axis of the system. The magnetic insulating crystal LiHoF₄ is a physical realization of the quantum Ising model, with the additional features that the dominant coupling between spins is the long range dipolar interaction, and each electronic spin is strongly coupled to a nuclear degree of freedom. These nuclear degrees of freedom constitute a spin bath environment acting on the system. In this thesis, we present an effective low temperature Hamiltonian for LiHoF₄ that incorporates both these features, and we analyze the effects of the nuclear spin bath on the system. We find the lowest energy crystal field excitation in the system is gapped at the quantum critical point by the presence of the nuclear spins, with spectral weight being transferred down to a lower energy electronuclear mode that fully softens to zero at the quantum critical point. Furthermore, we present a toy model, the spin half spin half model, that illustrates the effects of an anisotropic hyperfine interaction on a quantum Ising system. We find the critical transverse field is increased when the longitudinal hyperfine coupling is dominant, as well as an enhancement of both the longitudinal electronic susceptibility and an applied longitudinal field. In addition, we present a field theoretic formalism for incorporating the effects of fluctuations beyond the random phase approximation in general quantum Ising systems. We find that any regular on site interaction, such as a nuclear spin bath, does not fundamentally alter the critical properties of a quantum Ising system. This formalism is used to calculate corrections to the magnetization of LiHoF₄.