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arXiv:2603.15508

Cavity elimination in cavity-QED: a self-consistent input-output approach

Eliott Rambeau, Loïc Lanco

quant-phSubmitted Mar 16, 2026• Announced Mar 17, 2026• 0 citations• Revised Jun 24, 2026 (v3)
v1 · Mar 16, 2026v2 · Apr 21, 2026v3 · Jun 24, 2026
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Abstract

Simplifying composite open quantum systems through model reduction is central to enable their analytical and numerical understanding. In this work, we introduce a self-consistent approach to eliminate the cavity degrees of freedom of cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED) devices in the non-adiabatic regime, where the cavity memory time is comparable with the timescales of the atom dynamics. To do so, we consider a CQED system consisting of a two-level atom coupled to a single-mode cavity, both subsystems interacting with the environment through an arbitrary number of ports, within the input-output formalism. A self-consistency equation is derived for the reduced atom dynamics. This allows retrieving an exact expression for the effective Purcell-enhanced emission rate and, under reasonable approximations, a set of self-consistent dynamical equations and input-output relations for the effective two level atom. The resulting reduced model captures non-Markovian features, characterized through an effective Lindblad equation exhibiting two decoherence rates, a positive and a negative one. In the continuous-wave excitation regime, we benchmark our approach by computing effective steady states and output flux expressions beyond the low-power excitation regime, for which a semi-classical treatment is usually applied. We also compute two-time correlations and spectral densities, showing an excellent agreement with full cavity quantum electrodynamics simulations, except in the strong-coupling, high-excitation regime. Our results provide a practical framework for reducing the size of CQED models, which could be generalized to more complex atom and cavity configurations.

Comments
33 pages, 8 figures

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Simplifying composite open quantum systems through model reduction is central to enable their analytical and numerical understanding. In this work, we introduce a self-consistent approach to eliminate the cavity degrees of freedom of cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED) devices in the non-adiabatic regime, where the cavity memory time is comparable with the timescales of the atom dynamics. To do so, we consider a CQED system consisting of a two-level atom coupled to a single-mode cavity, both subsystems interacting with the environment through an arbitrary number of ports, within the input-output formalism. A self-consistency equation is derived for the reduced atom dynamics. This allows retrieving an exact expression for the effective Purcell-enhanced emission rate and, under reasonable approximations, a set of self-consistent dynamical equations and input-output relations for the effective two level atom. The resulting reduced model captures non-Markovian features, characterized through an effective Lindblad equation exhibiting two decoherence rates, a positive and a negative one. In the continuous-wave excitation regime, we benchmark our approach by computing effective steady states and output flux expressions beyond the low-power excitation regime, for which a semi-classical treatment is usually applied. We also compute two-time correlations and spectral densities, showing an excellent agreement with full cavity quantum electrodynamics simulations, except in the strong-coupling, high-excitation regime. Our results provide a practical framework for reducing the size of CQED models, which could be generalized to more complex atom and cavity configurations.
We propose a cavity quantum electrodynamic system consisting of a five-level atom coupled to a single mode of the cavity electromagnetic field. The study is focused on the regime of strong coupling between the cavity and atom. Pump laser fields and cavity fields connect the split energy levels of the atom. Instead of the well-known two-level Dicke model obtained by adiabatic elimination of the high-energy levels, we consider the pump lasers' detunings to the atomic transitions to be very small such that we can examine the influence of the higher-energy states. We have studied the effect of an external coherent drive and incoherent pumping on these higher-energy levels and observed the enhancement of intracavity photon numbers due to quantum coherence effects. The amplification of intracavity photons is achieved even without a population inversion. However, the effect of the coherent and incoherent drive is negligible for very large detunings when the higher-energy states are adiabatically eliminated. At zero and small detunings, the system reaches the steady state at an earlier instant of time for higher incoherent pumping. We find an almost agreeable steady-state behavior of the system's exact full quantum dynamics model and its semiclassical approximation. Our model tries to accurately simulate the open system by considering the cavity decay, spontaneous decay, and dephasing of the system.
The prototypical system constituted by a two-level atom interacting with a quantized single-mode electromagnetic field is described by the quantum Rabi model (QRM). The QRM is potentially valid at any light-matter interaction regime, ranging from the weak (where the decay rates exceeds the coupling rate) to the deep strong coupling (where the interaction rate exceeds the bare transition frequencies of the subsystems). However, when reaching the ultrastrong coupling regime, several theoretical issues may prevent the correct description of the observable dynamics of such a system: (i) the standard quantum optics master equation fails to correctly describe the interaction of this system with the reservoirs; (ii) the correct output photon rate is no longer proportional to the intracavity photon number; and (iii) they appear to violate gauge invariance. Here, we study the photon flux emission rate of this system under the incoherent excitation of the two-level atom for any light-matter interaction strength and consider different effective temperatures. The dependence of the emission spectra on the coupling strength is the result of the interplay between energy levels, matrix elements of the observables, and the density of states of the reservoirs. Within this approach, we also study the occurrence of light-matter decoupling in the deep strong-coupling regime and show how all of the obtained results are gauge invariant.
We investigate the full quantum evolution of ultracold interacting bosonic atoms on a chain and coupled to an optical cavity. Extending the time-dependent matrix product state techniques to capture the global coupling to the cavity mode and the open nature of the cavity, we examine the long time behavior of the system beyond the mean-field elimination of the cavity field. We benchmark the newly developed method by computing the von Neumann entanglement entropy of the quantum trajectories. We investigate the many body steady states and the self-organization transition for a wide range of parameters. We show that in the self-organized phase the steady state consists in a mixture of the mean-field predicted density wave states and excited states with additional defects. For large dissipation strengths we develop a variant of the many-body adiabatic elimination technique and obtain a steady state with a fully mixed atomic sector. We observe numerically the crossover from the density wave state towards this mixed state.
Cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) investigates the interaction between resonator-confined radiation and natural atoms. Similar phenomena can be explored using superconducting artificial atoms coupled to microwave resonators. Here, we examine incoherent and coherent spectra in a circuit QED system consisting of a flux qubit coupled to an LC resonator, considering different coupling configurations to the output transmission line. Although such systems can be effectively described by the quantum Rabi model, we demonstrate that the choice of the coupling between the resonator and the input-output channel can significantly affect the emission properties, particularly in the ultrastrong coupling regime. Specifically, we show that when the resonator is capacitively coupled with the input-output transmission line, the spectral features at zero flux offset can be mapped onto those of the cavity QED model. However, this correspondence breaks down for the mutual inductive coupling case. Extending our analysis to the parity-symmetry broken regime of the flux qubit, we further highlight how capacitive and inductive coupling mechanisms lead to distinct spectral features, emphasizing the necessity of a careful input-output treatment for an accurate description of the emission processes.
Abstract We investigate a hybrid quantum system consisting of two coupled optical cavities, each containing an ensemble of coherently pumped artificial or real two-level atoms. The system is modelled within the dressed-state formalism, accounting for coherent driving and dissipative interactions with independent electromagnetic reservoirs. Focusing on the regime where the Rabi frequency greatly exceeds the collective spontaneous emission and cavity decay rates, respectively, we derive the equations of motion characterizing the system and analyse its steady-state behaviours. Special attention is given to the scenario in which only one cavity contains a pumped multi-atom ensemble, and as a consequence, coherent excitation transfer to the second cavity occurs via cavity–cavity coupling. In this case, the mean photon number in the second cavity mode scales proportional to the squared number of atoms, i.e., N2 from the first cavity. The proposed model offers insight into light–matter interaction in composite systems and suggests viable mechanisms for engineering collective interactions and non-local excitation transport in quantum optical platforms.
We study theoretically the interaction between two photons in a nonlinear cavity. The photons are absorbed into the cavity by an effective tuning of its input-output coupling via external control of a coupling to a second, strongly output-coupled cavity mode. Such ``dynamically coupled'' cavities, which can be implemented using bulk ${\ensuremath{\chi}}^{(2)}$ and ${\ensuremath{\chi}}^{(3)}$ nonlinearities, enable incoming photon wave packets to be absorbed into the cavity with high fidelity when the duration of the control is similar to that of the wave packets. Further, this configuration can be used to avoid limitations in the photon-photon interaction time set by the delay-bandwidth product of passive cavities and enables the elimination of wave-packet distortions caused by dispersive cavity transmission and reflection. We consider three kinds of nonlinearities, two arising from ${\ensuremath{\chi}}^{(2)}$ and ${\ensuremath{\chi}}^{(3)}$ materials and one due to an interaction with a two-level emitter. To analyze the input and output of few-photon wave packets, we use a Schr\"odinger-picture formalism in which traveling-wave fields are discretized into infinitesimal time bins. We suggest that dynamically coupled cavities provide a very useful tool for improving the performance of quantum devices relying on cavity-enhanced light-matter interactions such as single-photon sources and atomlike quantum memories with photon interfaces. As an example, we present simulation results showing that high-fidelity two-qubit entangling gates may be constructed using any of the considered nonlinear interactions.