The authors consider a system comprised of a collection of identical two-level atoms interacting with the electromagnetic field in the dipole approximation and with an externally applied steady-state coherent driving field. The atoms are considered to interact with each other only via the electromagnetic field and are assumed to be contained within a volume much smaller than a resonance wavelength. The system is treated as a quantum-statistical ensemble in the rotating frame, rotating at the carrier frequency of the externally applied coherent field. The Hamiltonian in this frame is explicitly time independent and the exact analog of a spin temperature is defined. The thermodynamic-Green's-function method is used to determine the thermodynamic equilibrium properties of the system in the rotating frame. This results in a nonlinear relation between the applied field and the field in the volume containing the atoms. The expression is a nonlinear function of the effective or "spin" temperature as well, and has the form of a first-order phase transition with the macroscopic atomic polarization as order parameter. In the low-"spin"-temperature limit, and for perfect tuning, the expression reduces to the exact form of the nonlinear relation for optical bistability derived by Bonifacio and Lugiato and relating the incident and transmitted fields for atoms in a ring cavity in the mean-field approximation. The results contain absorptive as well as dispersive contributions. These results predict essentially different behavior as a function of off tuning compared with behavior predicted by others using statistical steady-state models far from thermodynamic equilibrium. In the limit of zero value for the applied field amplitude, the results reduce to the conditions for the well-known second-order superradiant" phase transition. The condition for the existence of the second-order phase transition is shown to depend on the cavity tuning and the photon escape rate. The authors also show why, in light of the experiments in optical bistability, this second-order phase is difficult to observe.
The authors consider a system comprised of a collection of identical two-level atoms interacting with the electromagnetic field in the dipole approximation and with an externally applied steady-state coherent driving field. The atoms are considered to interact with each other only via the electromagnetic field and are assumed to be contained within a volume much smaller than a resonance wavelength. The system is treated as a quantum-statistical ensemble in the rotating frame, rotating at the carrier frequency of the externally applied coherent field. The Hamiltonian in this frame is explicitly time independent and the exact analog of a spin temperature is defined. The thermodynamic-Green's-function method is used to determine the thermodynamic equilibrium properties of the system in the rotating frame. This results in a nonlinear relation between the applied field and the field in the volume containing the atoms. The expression is a nonlinear function of the effective or "spin" temperature as well, and has the form of a first-order phase transition with the macroscopic atomic polarization as order parameter. In the low-"spin"-temperature limit, and for perfect tuning, the expression reduces to the exact form of the nonlinear relation for optical bistability derived by Bonifacio and Lugiato and relating the incident and transmitted fields for atoms in a ring cavity in the mean-field approximation. The results contain absorptive as well as dispersive contributions. These results predict essentially different behavior as a function of off tuning compared with behavior predicted by others using statistical steady-state models far from thermodynamic equilibrium. In the limit of zero value for the applied field amplitude, the results reduce to the conditions for the well-known second-order superradiant" phase transition. The condition for the existence of the second-order phase transition is shown to depend on the cavity tuning and the photon escape rate. The authors also show why, in light of the experiments in optical bistability, this second-order phase is difficult to observe.
Dynamical transient response and longitudinal spatial evolution of the first-order phase transition are presented for intrinsic optical bistability of a system of interacting spatially distributed, coherently driven two-level atoms. It is shown that a discontinuity in the nonlinear dielectric function is established internal to the medium due to transient response to a coherent, externally applied, time-dependent driving field, following the attainment of a critical value for the input intensity. If the externally applied field intensity reaches the steady state, beyond the critical value, the discontinuity of the nonlinear dielectric function in the medium reaches a stable stationary condition and forms a spatial boundary between states of high and low polarization in the medium. Thus it is shown that intrinsic optical bistability corresponds to a spatial as well as a temporal first-order phase transition in light-matter interactions, far from thermodynamic equilibrium, where the spatial boundary between different phases is established by transient dynamical response to the incident field.
A general formulation, developed earlier, is applied to the problem of optical bistability in a sample with dimensions that are small compared with the wavelength of light. A self-consistent model of radiative relaxation is introduced in which atom–atom correlations are taken into account. This is based on the screened interaction approximation of the many-body theory. The degree of correlation is internally determined by the dynamics of the system. The validity of the S-conservation approximation is investigated; it is concluded that this approximation may be valid only in the weak-field limit, since the local-field fluctuations become appreciable as the pump-field strength is increased. As a result, the system undergoes a first-order phase transition, in contrast to the second-order transition predicted by the S-conserving model. The method is quite general, and it can be applied to other damping mechanisms. As an illustration, a simple collision model is also considered. In the limit of a zero external field and thermodynamic equilibrium, our results reduce to the results of existing theories; the system exhibits a second-order phase transition.
Dicke model describes a collective interaction between the two-level atoms and the light cavity and has been predicted to show a peculiar quantum phase transition, which is a second-order phase transition from a normal phase (in a weak-coupling strength) to a superradiant phase (in a strong-coupling strength). The model plays an important role in illustrating the quantum ground-state properties of many-body macroscopic quantum states. In the experiment, Dicke quantum phase transition in an open system could be formed by a Bose-Einstein condensate coupled to a high-finesse optical cavity. This experiment on the Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in the optical cavity have opened new frontiers, which could combine the cold atoms with quantum optics and makes it possible to enter into the strongly coupled regime of cavity quantum electrodynamics. In strong coupled regime, the atoms exchange the photons many times before spontaneous emission and cavity losses set in. It has become a hot research topic in recent years and plays an important role in many fields of modern physics, such as condensed matter physics, nuclear physics, etc. It can be applied to the manipulation of the geometric phase and entanglement in quantum information and computing. Quantum phase transition has been widely studied for the Dicke model as a typical example. Many different research methods about the mean-field approximation have been used to analyze the ground state properties of the Dicke model. In this paper, we study the ground state properties of two-component Bose-Einstein condensate in a single-mode cavity. Meanwhile, the associated quantum phase transition is described by the spin-coherent-state variational method, whose advantage is that the ground state energy and wave function can be obtained without the thermodynamic limit. By taking the average in the boson coherent state, we obtain an equivalent effective pesudospin Hamiltonian, which will be diagonalized by using the spin coherent state. Finally, we can obtain the energy functional, which is the basics of the variation to obtain the numerical solution of photon number and the expression of the atomic number and the ground state energy. This paper presents a rich phase diagram, which can be manipulated by changing the atom-field coupling imbalance between two components and the atom-field frequency detuning. While in the single-mode Dicke model there exist only the normal phase and the superradiation phase. When the frequency of one component atom is zero or the frequency of the two component atoms are equal in optical cavity, the system returns to the standard Dicke model, in which there occurs the second-order phase transition from the normal phase to the superradiant phase by adjusting the atom-field coupling. In conclusion, we discover that the stimulated radiation comes from the collective state of atomic population inversion, which does not exist in the single-mode Dicke model. Meanwhile, the new stimulated-radiation state S and S, which can only be produced by one component of the atom, are observed in the two-component Bose-Einstein condensates in the single-mode optical cavity. By adjusting the atom-field coupling imbalance and the atom-field frequency detuning (the blue or red detuning), the order of the superradiation state and the stimulated-radiation states can be exchanged between the two components of the atom.
In this paper, we investigate the finite-temperature properties and phase transition of the Dicke model. Converting the atomic pseudo-spin operator to the two-mode Fermi operators, we obtain the partition function in terms of the imaginary-time path integral. The atomic population and average photon number as analytic functions of the atom-photon coupling strength are found from the thermodynamic equilibrium equation, which leads to the stationary state at a finite temperature and is determined by the variation in an extremum-condition of the Euclidean action with respect to the bosonic field. In particular we study the phase transition from normal to superradiation phase at a fixed low-temperature, in which the phase transition is dominated by quantum fluctuations. The phase transition induced by the variation of the atom-photon coupling strength indeed obeys the Landau continuous phase-transition theory, in which the average photon-number can serve as an order parameter with non-zero value that characterizes the superradiation phase. In the zero temperature limit our results recover exactly all those obtained from the quantum phase transition theory at zero temperature. In addition, we discuss the thermodynamic properties and compare the difference between finite-temperature phase transition and zero-temperature quantum phase transition. It is discovered that the average photon-number and mean energy in the low-temperature stationary state coincide with the corresponding values of zero-temperature in the strong coupling region. The entropy of the superradiation phase decays rapidly to zero with the increase of coupling strength.
Quantum phase transition is an important subject in the field of quantum optics and condensed matter physics. In this work, we study the quantum phase transition of the two-mode Dicke model by using the nonlinear atom-light interaction introduced into the interaction between one mode light field and atom. The spin coherent variational method is used to study macroscopic multi-particle quantum systems. Firstly, the pseudo spin operator is diagonalized to obtain the variational fundamental state energy functional by means of spin coherent state transformation under the condition of coherent state light field. The energy functional is used to find the extreme value of the classical field variable, and the second derivative is determined to find the minimum value, and finally the exact solution of the ground state energy is given. Four different proportional relationships are used to study the two-mode optical field, and the rich structure of macroscopic multi-particle quantum states is given by adjusting atom-optical nonlinear interaction parameters under the experimental parameters. The abundant ground state properties such as bistable normal phase, coexisting normal-superradiation and atomic population inversion under blue and red detuning are presented. The nonlinear atom-light interaction causes blue detuning, and there is also a second-order quantum phase transition from the normal phase to the superradiation phase in the standard two-mode Dicke model. In the case of red detuning, a novel and stable reversed superradiation phase also appears. With the increase of the coupling coefficient, the reversed superradiation phase is transformed into the reversed normal phase. The nonlinear interaction between atoms and light and the different ratio of two modes of light field have great influence on the phase boundary of quantum phase transition, and the region of quantum state, as shown in Fig. (a)–(d). When the nonlinear interaction takes two definite values, the curve of the ground state physical parameters changing with the coupling parameters of atoms and light also reflects the novel second-order inverse quantum phase transition from the reversed superradiation phase to the reversed normal phase in red detuning, as shown in Fig. (a1)–(d3).
Dicke model, as an important many-body model in quantum optics, describes the interaction between multiple identical two-level atoms and a quantized electromagnetic field. This spin-boson model shows collective phenomena in light-matter interaction systems and can undergo a second-order quantum phase transition from a normal phase to a superradiant phase when the coupling strength between the two-level atoms and the optical field exceeds a critical value. Dicke model embodies unique many-body quantum theories. And it has been widely studied and obtained many significant research results in quantum information, quantum process, and other quantum systems. Meanwhile, Dicke model also has wide applications in quantum optics and condensed matter physics. The extended Dicke model, describing the interaction of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical cavity, provides a remarkable platform for studying extraordinary quantum phase transitions in theory and experiment. Based on the recent experiment on non-Hermitian coupling between two long-lived atomic spin waves in an optical cavity, in this work we use spin-coherent-state variational method and present the macroscopic quantum-state energy of the non-Hermitian Dicke model. The spin coherent state variational method has an advantage in the theoretical research of macroscopic quantum states, especially in the normal and the inverted pseudospin states. In the variational method, optical coherent states and atomic extremum spin coherent states are used as the trial wave functions. A Hermitian transformation operator is proposed to diagonalize the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian, which is different from the ordinary quantum mechanics where the transformation operator must be unitary. Herein, the energy function is not necessarily real in the entire coupling region. Beyond an exceptional point, the spectrum becomes complex and introducing biorthogonal sets of atomic extremum states is necessary to evaluate the average quantities. The normal phase (for the zero average photon number) possesses real energy and atomic population. The non-Hermitian interaction destroys the superradiant phase (for the stable nonzero average photon number) and leads to the absence of quantum phase transition. However, the introduced atom-photon interaction, which is induced by the pump field experimentally, can change the situation, dramatically. The pump field can balance the loss by the non-Hermitian atom-photon interaction to achieve the superradiant phase. An interesting double exceptional point are observed in the energy functional. There is the real spectrum below the first exceptional point and beyond the second exceptional point, while there is a complex spectrum between these two exceptional points. The superradiant phase appears only beyond a critical value, which is related to the nonlinear interaction and the pump laser. A new and inverted quantum phase transition from the superradiant phase to the normal phase, is observed by modulating the atom-field coupling strength. The superradiant phase of the population inversion state appears for a negative effective frequency and a large atom-photon interaction. The influence of the dissipative coupling may be observed in cold atom experiment in an optical cavity. All the parameters adopted in this work are the actual experimental parameters.