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arXiv:2604.21158

Multidimensional semiclassical single- and double-quantum spectroscopy of anharmonic molecular polaritons

Michael Reitz, Harsh Bhakta, Wei Xiong, Joel Yuen-Zhou

quant-phcond-mat.mes-hallphysics.chem-phphysics.opticsSubmitted Apr 22, 2026• Announced Apr 24, 2026
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Abstract

We present a general and efficient approach to compute phase-resolved multidimensional spectra of anharmonic molecular polaritons, based on a semiclassical evolution of the molecular Hamiltonian and cavity field in the large-$\mathcal{N}$ limit of many molecules coupled to a confined photonic mode. By systematically expanding the response in both amplitudes and phases of the input fields, our method enables a transparent and computationally simple construction of phase-cycled two-dimensional single- and double-quantum polariton spectra from the underlying nonlinear signal components. Here, phase cycling acts as an analogue of phase matching with oblique pulses, allowing for the isolation of the contributing nonlinear pathways in Liouville space. We specialize to vibrational polaritons and benchmark the method through direct comparison with experimentally measured single-quantum spectra, providing an explanation for the longstanding puzzle of the polariton bleach effect observed at short waiting times. Further, we show how the imprint of various types of anharmonicities on the double-excitation manifold can be directly probed and analyzed through double-quantum coherence spectroscopy. Taken together, our results establish a practical and powerful framework for the modeling and interpretation of nonlinear spectroscopic experiments on strongly coupled light-matter platforms and for guiding the design of cavity-enhanced molecular platforms.

Comments
12 pages (10 figures) + 10 pages Supplement (6 figures). Includes ancillary GIF file showing a movie of the double-quantum coherence spectrum as a function of excitation time

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The field of Polaritonic Chemistry studies molecules strongly coupled to the light field of optical cavities. The resulting modification of the potential energy landscape has been demonstrated to enable control over the chemical and physical properties of materials and molecular ensembles. This thesis extends the Tavis–Cummings model to describe molecules under strong light–matter coupling, incorporating static dipole moments and dipole self-energy contributions derived from the Pauli–Fierz Hamiltonian. These additional terms are shown to be essential for reproducing cavity-modified molecular dynamics and spectra. Simulations on the nuclear wavefunction propagation of MgH+ molecules demonstrate the impact of these terms, while an effective two-level system model accurately captures the behavior of large ensembles. Beyond single excitations, the thesis also explores the higher excitation manifolds of the Tavis-Cummings model, which reveals that allowing for more than a single excitation makes the reaction of the involved polaritons entropically more favorable. Open-system simulations highlight how the coherence of the system's initial state governs decay pathways and enables long-lived energy storage. Finally, a multilevel vibrational model coupled to a two-mode cavity is introduced, where a Raman scheme enables selective mixing of vibrational states. The simulation results show that continuous pumping can drive molecules into specific vibrational states while suppressing electronic excitation, both for single molecules and small ensembles. Together, these results provide new theoretical insights into the mechanisms by which optical cavities reshape molecular energy landscapes. The results suggest approaches for controlling photonic, electronic, and vibrational dynamics in strongly coupled systems, contributing to the theoretical foundation of polariton chemistry.
We present a microscopic theory for nonlinear optical spectroscopy of N molecules in an optical cavity. Using the Heisenberg-Langevin equation, an analytical expression is derived for the time- and frequency-resolved signals accounting for arbitrary numbers of vibrational excitations. We identify clear signatures of the polariton-polaron interaction from multidimensional projections of the signal, e.g., pathways and timescales. Cooperative dynamics of cavity polaritons against intramolecular vibrations is revealed, along with a crosstalk between long-range coherence and vibronic coupling that may lead to localization effects. Our results further characterize the polaritonic coherence and the population transfer that is slower.
Confined electromagnetic modes strongly couple to collective excitations in ensembles of quantum emitters, producing light–matter hybrid states known as polaritons. Under such conditions, the discrete multilevel spectrum of molecular systems offers an appealing playground for exploring multiphoton processes. This work contrasts predictions from the Tavis–Cummings model in which the material is a collection of two-level systems, with the implications of considering additional energy levels with harmonic and anharmonic structures. We discuss the exact eigenspectrum, up to the second excitation manifold, of an arbitrary number N of oscillators collectively coupled to a single cavity mode in the rotating-wave approximation. Elaborating on our group-theoretic approach [New J. Phys. 23, 063081 (2021)], we simplify the brute-force diagonalization of N2 × N2 Hamiltonians to the eigendecomposition of, at most, 4 × 4 matrices for arbitrary N. We thoroughly discuss the eigenstates and the consequences of weak and strong anharmonicities. Furthermore, we find resonant conditions between bipolaritons and anharmonic transitions where two-photon absorption can be enhanced. Finally, we conclude that energy shifts in the polaritonic states induced by anharmonicities become negligible for large N. Thus, calculations with a single or few quantum emitters qualitatively fail to represent the nonlinear optical response of the collective strong coupling regime. Our work highlights the rich physics of multilevel anharmonic systems coupled to cavities absent in standard models of quantum optics. We also provide concise tabulated expressions for eigenfrequencies and transition amplitudes, which should serve as a reference for future spectroscopic studies of molecular polaritons.
Molecular Polariton is becoming one of the leading directions to control a multitude of chemical and physical processes, such as charge transfer, selective bond breaking, and excited state dynamics. Accurately and efficiently simulating polariton properties under the collective coupling regimes (between NNN molecules and the cavity mode) remains a central theoretical challenge. In this work, we use a stochastic resolution of the identity approach coupled with a Chebyshev expansion to compute various polariton photophysical properties, with a substantially reduced computational effort than would be needed for a direct diagonalization of the same Hamiltonian, which is often the bottleneck for such large dimensionality. Such quantities of interest are the total density of states (the eigenspectrum of the Hamiltonian) and the transmission spectrum (a probe of the photonic degrees of freedom), the latter of which is a direct observable in the experiment. We simulate the linear spectroscopy of molecule-cavity hybrid systems, specifically exploring the effects of the distribution and magnitude of molecular disorder for one, few, and many coupled molecules. We compare our numerical results to recent work, which formulated analytic expressions in the large-NNN limit for the spectroscopic signals. We find that our results match those of the analytic results when N=100N= 100N=100, at which point we find that the collective effects for linear spectroscopy are converged.