Quantum theory predicts that empty space is not truly empty. Even in the absence of any particles or radiation, in pure vacuum, virtual particles are constantly created and annihilated. In an electromagnetic field, the presence of virtual photons manifests itself as a small renormalization of the energy of a quantum system, known as the Lamb shift. We present an experimental observation of the Lamb shift in a solid-state system. The strong dispersive coupling of a superconducting electronic circuit acting as a quantum bit (qubit) to the vacuum field in a transmission-line resonator leads to measurable Lamb shifts of up to 1.4% of the qubit transition frequency. The qubit is also observed to couple more strongly to the vacuum field than to a single photon inside the cavity, an effect that is explained by taking into account the limited anharmonicity of the higher excited qubit states.
Quantum theory predicts that empty space is not truly empty. Even in the absence of any particles or radiation, in pure vacuum, virtual particles are constantly created and annihilated. In an electromagnetic field, the presence of virtual photons manifests itself as a small renormalization of the energy of a quantum system, known as the Lamb shift. We present an experimental observation of the Lamb shift in a solid-state system. The strong dispersive coupling of a superconducting electronic circuit acting as a quantum bit (qubit) to the vacuum field in a transmission-line resonator leads to measurable Lamb shifts of up to 1.4% of the qubit transition frequency. The qubit is also observed to couple more strongly to the vacuum field than to a single photon inside the cavity, an effect that is explained by taking into account the limited anharmonicity of the higher excited qubit states.
When a two-level system (TLS) is coupled to an electromagnetic resonator, its transition frequency changes in response to the quantum vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field, a phenomenon known as the Lamb shift. Remarkably, by replacing the TLS by a harmonic oscillator, normal-mode splitting leads to a quantitatively similar shift, without taking quantum fluctuations into account. In a weakly anharmonic system, lying in between the harmonic oscillator and a TLS, the origins of such shifts can be unclear. An example of this is the dispersive shift of a transmon qubit in circuit quantum electrodynamics (QED). Although often referred to as a Lamb shift, the dispersive shift observed in spectroscopy in circuit QED could contain a significant contribution from normal-mode splitting that is not driven by quantum fluctuations, raising the question: how much of this shift is quantum in origin? Here we treat normal-mode splitting separately from shifts induced by quantum vacuum fluctuations in the Hamiltonian of a weakly anharmonic system, providing a framework for understanding the extent to which observed frequency shifts can be attributed to quantum fluctuations.
According to quantum field theory, the vacuum is filled with virtual particles which can be turned into real ones under the influence of external perturbations. Phenomena of this kind are commonly referred to as quantum vacuum phenomena. Several quantum vacuum phenomena related to the peculiar nature of the quantum vacuum have been predicted, some of which, such as the Lamb shift and the Casimir effect, have been experimentally found. Other examples of quantum vacuum phenomena include the Unruh effect, the dynamical Casimir effect and the dynamical Lamb effect. The dynamical Lamb effect was first predicted by considering the situation of an atom passing through a cavity at relativistic speed. In this case, the excitation of the atom and the generation of photons is thought to arise because of the sudden change of Lamb shift of the atom. If multiple atoms concurrently experience the dynamical Lamb effect, they can become entangled. A theoretical framework to investigate the time-evolution of a system of N qubits, modeling atoms, coupled to a harmonic oscillator, modeling a cavity, with time-dependent coupling is developed. For the case of a closed system, three different analytical approaches are presented. First, a perturbative approach in the time-domain. This is the standard approach in the solution of Schrödinger equation. Second, a perturbative approach in the Laplace-domain. This can simplify the solution of Schrödinger equation with time-dependent Hamiltonians. However, both approaches require the interaction part of the Hamiltonian to be small compared to the unperturbed Hamiltonian. Third, the framework of Floquet theory is introduced. This can be used in the case of periodic Hamiltonians regardless of the interaction strength. For the case of an open system, the dynamics is investigated by numerically solving the Lindblad master equation. These approaches are then applied to the study of the time-evolution of the quantum entanglement between two and three qubits coupled to a harmonic oscillator. It is demonstrated that different measures of entanglement show a different level of detail of the latter and that time-dependent Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states can be created even in the presence of dissipation.The dynamical Lamb effect is predicted to arise in superconducting circuits when the coupling of a superconducting qubit with a resonator is periodically switched “on” and “off”nonadiabatically. We show that by using a superconducting circuit which allows one to switch between longitudinal and transverse coupling of a qubit to a resonator, it is possible to observe the dynamical Lamb effect. The switching between longitudinal and transverse coupling can be achieved by modulating the magnetic flux through the circuit loops. Superconducting circuits of this kind are routinely used as quantum information processors. These devices take advantage of quantum properties for mathematical computations, improving their computational capabilities compared to regular computers. We have implemented Shor’s factoring algorithm, in a simplified form, on one such device made available through the cloud by IBM. We study the results of the algorithm on the ibmqx5 superconducting chip, for the particular case of factoring N= 15, 21, and 35. Positive results are obtained for factoring15 and 21, although the device fails to compute the factors of 35 due to the errors introduced by the presence of noise.
Abstract Vacuum fluctuations fundamentally affect an atom by inducing a finite excited state lifetime along with a Lamb shift of its transition frequency. Here we report the reverse effect: modification of vacuum modes by a single atom in circuit quantum electrodynamics. Our one-dimensional vacuum is a long section of a high wave impedance (comparable to resistance quantum) superconducting transmission line. It is directly wired to a transmon qubit circuit. Owing to the combination of high impedance and galvanic connection, the transmon’s spontaneous emission linewidth can greatly exceed the discrete transmission line modes spacing. This condition defines a previously unexplored superstrong coupling regime of quantum electrodynamics where many frequency-resolved vacuum modes hybridize with a single atom. We establish this regime by observing the spontaneous emission line of the transmon, revealed through the mode-by-mode measurement of the vacuum’s density of states. The linewidth as well as the atom-induced dispersive photon−photon interaction are accurately described by a physically transparent Caldeira−Leggett model, with the transmon’s quartic nonlinearity treated as a perturbation. Nonperturbative modification of vacuum, including inelastic scattering of single photons, can be enabled by the superstrong coupling regime upon replacing the transmon by more anharmonic qubits, with broad implications for simulating quantum impurity models of many-body physics.
It is known that the electromagnetic vacuum is responsible for the Lamb shift, which is a crucial phenomenon in quantum electrodynamics (QED). In circuit QED, the readout or bus resonators that are dispersively coupled can result in a significant Lamb shift of the qubit. However, previous approaches or proposals for controlling the Lamb shift in circuit QED demand overheads in circuit designs or non-perturbative renormalization of the system’s eigenbases, which can impose formidable limitations. In this work, we propose and demonstrate an all-microwave method for controlling the Lamb shift of fixed-frequency transmons. We employ the drive-induced longitudinal coupling between the transmon and resonator. By simply using an off-resonant monochromatic drive near the resonator frequency, we can control the net Lamb shift up to ±30 MHz and engineer it to zero with the drive-induced longitudinal coupling without facing the aforementioned challenges. Our work establishes an efficient way of engineering the fundamental effects of the electromagnetic vacuum and provides greater flexibility in non-parametric frequency controls of multilevel systems. Engineering the Lamb shifts of superconducting qubits opens new opportunities in resonant frequency tunings and other applications. Here, the authors devise and demonstrate an all-microwave approach that can be utilized with fixed-frequency superconducting qubits.
Superconducting circuits provide a new platform for study of nonstationary cavity QED phenomena. An example of such a phenomenon is the dynamical Lamb effect, which is the parametric excitation of an atom due to nonadiabatic modulation of its Lamb shift. This effect was initially introduced for a natural atom in a varying cavity, while we suggest its realization in a superconducting qubit-cavity system with dynamically tunable coupling. In the present paper, we study the interplay between the dynamical Lamb effect and the energy dissipation, which is unavoidable in realistic systems. We find that despite naive expectations, this interplay can lead to unexpected dynamical regimes. One of the most striking results is that photon generation from vacuum can be strongly enhanced due to qubit relaxation, which opens another channel for such a process. We also show that dissipation in the cavity can increase the qubit excited-state population. Our results can be used for experimental observation and investigation of the dynamical Lamb effect and accompanying quantum effects.
A natural atom placed into a cavity with time-dependent parameters can be parametrically excited due to interaction with the quantized photon mode. One of the channels for this process is the dynamical Lamb effect, induced by a nonadiabatic modulation of the atomic-level Lamb shift. However, in experiments with natural atoms it is quite difficult to isolate this effect from other mechanisms of atom excitation. We point out that a transmission line cavity coupled with a superconducting qubit (an artificial macroscopic atom) provides a unique platform for observation of the dynamical Lamb effect. A key idea is to exploit a dynamically tunable qubit-resonator coupling, which was implemented quite recently. By varying the coupling nonadiabatically, it is possible to parametrically excite a qubit through a nonadiabatic modulation of the Lamb shift, even if the cavity was initially empty. The dynamics of such a coupled system is studied within the Rabi model with a time-dependent coupling constant and beyond the rotating-wave approximation. An efficient method to increase the effect through the periodic and nonadiabatic switching of the qubit-resonator coupling energy is proposed.