We study the non-Markovian dynamics of a giant artificial atom coupled to a one-dimensional acoustic waveguide beyond the rotating-wave and weak-coupling approximations. By combining an optimized ESPRIT-based decomposition of the bath correlation function with the hierarchical equations of motion (HEOM), we achieve numerically exact simulations in regimes with long memory times, finite temperature, and strong system-bath coupling. Benchmarking against analytical results reveals the breakdown of perturbative non-Markovian approaches such as Redfield theory even at weak coupling in the presence of delay-induced memory. We further show that non-Markovian features, including excitation revivals, remain robust at finite temperature and can be enhanced by increasing the system-bath coupling strength. Our approach provides a versatile framework for studying non-Markovian quantum dynamics in structured environments relevant to giant-atom platforms.
We study the non-Markovian dynamics of a giant artificial atom coupled to a one-dimensional acoustic waveguide beyond the rotating-wave and weak-coupling approximations. By combining an optimized ESPRIT-based decomposition of the bath correlation function with the hierarchical equations of motion (HEOM), we achieve numerically exact simulations in regimes with long memory times, finite temperature, and strong system-bath coupling. Benchmarking against analytical results reveals the breakdown of perturbative non-Markovian approaches such as Redfield theory even at weak coupling in the presence of delay-induced memory. We further show that non-Markovian features, including excitation revivals, remain robust at finite temperature and can be enhanced by increasing the system-bath coupling strength. Our approach provides a versatile framework for studying non-Markovian quantum dynamics in structured environments relevant to giant-atom platforms.
Superconducting circuits coupled to acoustic waveguides have extended the range of phenomena that can be experimentally studied using tools from quantum optics. In particular, giant artificial atoms permit the investigation of systems in which the electric dipole approximation breaks down and pronounced non-Markovian effects become important. While previous studies of giant atoms focused on the realm of the rotating-wave approximation, we go beyond this and perform a numerically exact analysis of giant atoms strongly coupled to their environment, in regimes where counter-rotating terms cannot be neglected. To achieve this, we use a Lanczos transformation to cast the field Hamiltonian into the form of a one-dimensional chain and employ matrix-product state simulations. This approach yields access to a wide range of system-bath observables and to relatively unexplored parameter regimes.
Giant atoms, quantum emitters that couple to light at multiple discrete points, are emerging as a new paradigm in quantum optics due to their many promising properties, such as decoherence-free interaction. While most previous work has considered giant atoms coupled to open continuous waveguides or a single giant atom coupled to a structured bath, here we study the interaction between two giant atoms mediated by a structured waveguide, e.g., a photonic crystal waveguide. This environment is characterized by a finite energy band and a band gap, which affect atomic dynamics beyond the Markovian regime. Here we show that, inside the band, decoherence-free interaction is possible for different atom-cavity detunings, but is degraded from the continuous-waveguide case by time delay and other non-Markovian effects. Outside the band, where atoms interact through the overlap of bound states, we find that giant atoms can interact more strongly and over longer distances than small atoms for some parameters, for instance, when restricting the maximum coupling strength achievable per coupling point. The results presented here may find applications in quantum simulation and quantum gate implementation.
While ideal lattice models have been widely used to study giant-atom systems, fabrication-induced defects inevitably introduce disorder in realistic platforms. Here, we study non-Markovian dynamics of a giant atom coupled to a discrete photonic lattice with on-site frequency disorder. Using time-domain and spectral analyses, we show that the overall population-decay envelope and global photon-transport patterns remain robust against moderate lattice disorder, while the quantified non-Markovian memory can be significantly enhanced within the explored disorder range. We characterize the memory using a normalized geometrical non-Markovianity measure tailored to delayed giant-atom feedback and demonstrate how the coupling-point separation and the disorder strength serve as complementary parameters that shape the delay timescale and the complexity of coherent-feedback interference. Spectral analysis reveals that scattering-band transport is relatively insensitive to disorder, whereas disorder-sensitive bound-state branches and localization features reshape revival windows and promote information backflow. Our results establish a disorder-aware framework for understanding and engineering non-Markovian feedback effects of giant atoms in structured reservoirs.
We study the disentanglement dynamics of two giant atoms coupled to a common one-dimensional waveguide. We focus on the non-Markovian retarded effect in the disentanglement of the two giant atoms by taking the photon transmission time into account. By solving the time-delayed equations of motion for the probability amplitudes, we obtain the evolution of the entanglement of the two giant atoms, which are initially in the maximally entangled states in the single-excitation space. It is found that the retardation-induced non-Markovianity leads to nonexponential decay and revivals of entanglement. Concretely, we consider separate-, braided-, and nested-coupling configurations, and find that the disentanglement dynamics in these configurations exhibits different features. We demonstrate that the steady-state entanglement depends on the time delay under certain conditions in these three coupling configurations. We also study the dependence of the disentanglement of the two giant atoms on both the detuning effect and the initial-state phase effect. In addition, we consider the disentanglement dynamics of the two giant atoms, which are initially in the state superposed by zero-excitation and two-excitation components. This work will pave the way for the generation of stationary entanglement between two giant atoms, which may have potential applications in the construction of large-scale quantum networks based on the giant-atom waveguide-QED systems.
Quantum optics with giant emitters has shown a new route for the observation and manipulation of non-Markovian properties in waveguide QED. In this paper we extend the theory of giant atoms, hitherto restricted to the perturbative light-matter regime, to deal with the ultrastrong-coupling regime. Using static and dynamical polaron methods, we address the low-energy subspace of a giant atom coupled to an Ohmic waveguide beyond the standard rotating-wave approximation. We analyze the equilibrium properties of the system by computing the atomic frequency renormalization as a function of the coupling characterizing the localization-delocalization quantum phase transition for a giant atom. We show that virtual photons dressing the ground state are nonexponentially localized around the contact points but decay as a power law. The dynamics of an initially excited giant atom is studied, pointing out the effects of ultrastrong coupling on the Lamb shift and the spontaneous emission decay rate. Finally, we comment on the existence of the so-called oscillating bound states beyond the rotating-wave approximation.
We study the generation of quantum entanglement between two giant atoms coupled to a common one-dimensional waveguide. Here each giant atom interacts with the waveguide at two separate coupling points. Within the Wigner-Weisskopf framework for single coupling points, we obtain the time-delayed quantum master equations governing the evolution of the two giant atoms for three different coupling configurations: separated, braided, and nested couplings. For each coupling configuration, we consider both the Markovian and non-Markovian entanglement dynamics of the giant atoms, which are initially in two different separable states: single- and double-excitation states. Our results show that the generated entanglement depends on the phase shift, time delay, atomic initial state, and the coupling configuration. For the single-excitation initial state, there exists the steady-state entanglement for each coupling in both the Markovian and non-Markovian regimes due to the appearance of the dark state. For the double-excitation initial state, we observe entanglement sudden birth via adjusting the phase shift in both regimes. In particular, the maximally achievable entanglement for the nested coupling is about one order of magnitude larger than those of separate and braided couplings. We also find that the maximal entanglement for these three coupling configurations can be enhanced in the case of small time delays. This work can be utilized for the generation and control of entanglement in quantum networks based on giant-atom waveguide-QED systems, which have wide potential applications in quantum information processing.