Phase in Quantum Electrodynamics

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Detlef Dürr

C. A. M. de Melo, Bruno Peres, J C Sumire Esquia +1 more

The Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect is considered in the context of Generalized Electrodynamics (GE) by Podolsky and Bopp. GE is the only extension to Maxwell electrodynamics that is locally U(1)-gauge invariant, admits linear field equations and contains higher-order derivatives of the vector potential. GE admits both massless and massive modes for the photon. We recover the ordinary quantum phase shift of the AB effect, derived in the context of Maxwell electrodynamics, for the massless mode of the photon in GE. The massive mode induces a correction factor to the AB phase shift depending on the photon mass. We study both the magnetic AB effect and its electric counterpart. In principle, accurate experimental observations of AB the phase shift could be used to constrain GE photon mass.

Lev I. Plimak, Stig Stenholm

Phase-space techniques are generalized to nonlinear quantum electrodynamics beyond the rotating wave approximation, resulting in an essentially classical picture of radiation dynamics.

Ronald Kleiss

Xu Han, Yu Yan, Lu Qi +3 more

Abstract We propose a scheme to investigate the topological phase transition in the generalized one-dimensional Su–Schrieffer–Heeger (SSH) model based on a circuit quantum electrodynamics (QED) lattice with frequency modulation. We find that, if we keep the resonant counter rotating wave terms to map the p -wave superconducting pairing terms in the topological superconductor by dint of frequency modulation, the circuit QED lattice can be equivalent to the SSH model with p -wave superconducting pairing terms. The numerical results show that the existence of the superconducting pairing terms cannot close the energy gap of the SSH model within the feasible range of parameters, which means that the superconducting pairing terms cannot induce the topological phase transition. To induce the topological phase transition, we add the next-nearest-neighboring (NNN) interaction into the circuit QED-based SSH model simultaneously. We find that, for a given superconducting pairing strength, the appropriate selection of the NNN interaction can induce closing of the energy gap. It indicates that a new topological phase transition between the topologically nontrivial SSH phase and the topologically trivial SSH phase occurs in the SSH model. Our scheme provides a means to explore the topological SSH phase transition based on a circuit QED lattice with frequency modulation.