Abstract Ultrastrong-coupling between two-level systems and radiation is important for both fundamental and applied quantum electrodynamics (QED). Such regimes are identified by the breakdown of the rotating-wave approximation, which applied to the quantum Rabi model (QRM) yields the apparently less fundamental Jaynes-Cummings model (JCM). We show that when truncating the material system to two levels, each gauge gives a different description whose predictions vary significantly for ultrastrong-coupling. QRMs are obtained through specific gauge choices, but so too is a JCM without needing the rotating-wave approximation. Analysing a circuit QED setup, we find that this JCM provides more accurate predictions than the QRM for the ground state, and often for the first excited state as well. Thus, Jaynes-Cummings physics is not restricted to light-matter coupling below the ultrastrong limit. Among the many implications is that the system’s ground state is not necessarily highly entangled, which is usually considered a hallmark of ultrastrong-coupling.
Abstract Ultrastrong-coupling between two-level systems and radiation is important for both fundamental and applied quantum electrodynamics (QED). Such regimes are identified by the breakdown of the rotating-wave approximation, which applied to the quantum Rabi model (QRM) yields the apparently less fundamental Jaynes-Cummings model (JCM). We show that when truncating the material system to two levels, each gauge gives a different description whose predictions vary significantly for ultrastrong-coupling. QRMs are obtained through specific gauge choices, but so too is a JCM without needing the rotating-wave approximation. Analysing a circuit QED setup, we find that this JCM provides more accurate predictions than the QRM for the ground state, and often for the first excited state as well. Thus, Jaynes-Cummings physics is not restricted to light-matter coupling below the ultrastrong limit. Among the many implications is that the system’s ground state is not necessarily highly entangled, which is usually considered a hallmark of ultrastrong-coupling.
Ultrastrong-coupling between two-level systems and radiation is important for both fundamental and applied quantum electrodynamics (QED). Such regimes are identified by the breakdown of the rotating-wave approximation, which applied to the quantum Rabi model (QRM) yields the apparently less fundamental Jaynes-Cummings model (JCM). We show that when truncating the material system to two levels, each gauge gives a different description whose predictions vary significantly for ultrastrong-coupling. QRMs are obtained through specific gauge choices, but so too is a JCM without needing the rotating-wave approximation. Analysing a circuit QED setup, we find that this JCM provides more accurate predictions than the QRM for the ground state, and often for the first excited state as well. Thus, Jaynes-Cummings physics is not restricted to light-matter coupling below the ultrastrong limit. Among the many implications is that the system's ground state is not necessarily highly entangled, which is usually considered a hallmark of ultrastrong-coupling.
Ultrastrong-coupling between an effective two-level system and radiation offers immense potential for advancing both fundamental and applied quantum electrodynamics (QED). Such regimes cannot be treated using the rotating-wave approximation, which applied to the quantum Rabi model yields the apparently less fundamental Jaynes-Cummings model. However, the implications of gauge-freedom for ultrastrong-coupling QED are yet to be recognised. Here we show that when truncating the material system to only two levels, each gauge gives a different effective description whose predictions can vary significantly for ultrastrong-coupling. Rabi models are obtained through specific gauge choices, but so too is a Jaynes-Cummings model without needing the rotating-wave approximation. Analysing a circuit QED setup, we find that this Jaynes-Cummings model is not only valid well beyond the rotating-wave approximation, it is often more accurate than the Rabi model. Among the many implications of this finding is that the system's ground state is not necessarily highly entangled, which is usually considered a hallmark of ultrastrong-coupling light-matter physics.
We use a recently derived gauge-invariant formulation of the problem of a two-level system coupled to an optical cavity to explore the transition between the weak and the ultrastrong coupling regimes of light-matter interaction. We explore this transition using the intensity correlations ${g}^{(2)}(\ensuremath{\tau})$ of the emitted light, and we find strong, unbounded bunching of the emission from systems governed by the Rabi Hamiltonian. Surprisingly, this effect is observed not only in the ultrastrong coupling regime, but also for weakly coupled systems, where the Jaynes-Cummings Hamiltonian would predict the opposite, antibunched emission. This suggests that the higher-order correlations are a particularly sensitive probe of the divergence between the Jaynes-Cummings and Rabi Hamiltonians, and they can serve as an indicator of the breakdown of the rotating wave approximation. Our findings indicate also that the boundary between the weakly, strongly, and ultra-strongly-coupled dynamics is much richer than currently accepted.
We revisit the derivation of Rabi- and Dicke-type models, which are commonly used for the study of quantum light-matter interactions in cavity and circuit QED. We demonstrate that the validity of the two-level approximation, which is an essential step in this derivation, depends explicitly on the choice of gauge once the system enters the ultrastrong-coupling regime. In particular, while in the electric dipole gauge the two-level approximation can be performed as long as the Rabi frequency remains much smaller than the energies of all higher-lying levels, it can dramatically fail in the Coulomb gauge, even for systems with an extremely anharmonic spectrum. We extensively investigate this phenomenon both in the single-dipole (Rabi) and multidipole (Dicke) case, and consider the specific examples of dipoles confined by double-well and square-well potentials, and of circuit QED systems with flux qubits coupled to an LC resonator.
The interaction of a nonrelativistic, ``two-level'' atom with a single-frequency, quantized electromagnetic field is usually analyzed in the dipole approximation by applying the rotating-wave approximation (RWA) to obtain the exactly solvable Jaynes-Cummings model (JCM). In this paper, it is shown that for a spin-1/2 particle, at rest in a constant magnetic field and for a system that obeys the electric dipole \ensuremath{\Delta}m=\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1 selection rules, a choice of a perturbing field that consists of circularly polarized photons can make the RWA unnecessary for the solution of the quantum-electrodynamic (QED) problem. For these cases, the only approximation necessary to obtain an exact solution of the QED problem is to neglect the spontaneous emission of photons with a sense of polarization opposite that of the perturbing field. The matrix elements corresponding to these ``virtual'' processes are independent of the number of photons n in the applied field and become relatively small, compared with those that correspond to energy-conserving processes, as n becomes large.However, a two-level system that obeys the \ensuremath{\Delta}m=0 selection rule will require the RWA in order to reduce it to the JCM, regardless of the choice of polarization of the perturbing field. For this case, the emission of the photons that do not conserve energy is an induced process that corresponds to matrix elements that increase as \ensuremath{\surd}n+1 . It is thus concluded that, provided the right choice of selection rules and polarization of the applied field is made, the JCM provides a more accurate description of some systems than the accuracy of the RWA. Furthermore, it is concluded that an experimental test of the validity of the RWA can be made by performing the same experiments on an electric dipole \ensuremath{\Delta}m=\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1 transition, first with circularly polarized light and then with linearly polarized light of the same intensity. Any difference in response of the atomic system for these two experiments can be identified with terms that are neglected in the RWA. This experimental technique may prove useful for observing the optical Bloch-Siegert shift and for investigating the failure of the RWA and the chaotic quantum behavior predicted by Milonni, Ackerhalt, and Galbraith [Phys. Rev. Lett. 50, 966 (1983)].
We propose a reliable scheme to realize the ultrastrong Jaynes-Cummings (JC) model by simultaneously modulating the resonance frequencies of the two-level system and the bosonic mode in the ultrastrong quantum Rabi model. We find that in both the high- and low-frequency modulation regimes, the counter-rotating terms can be completely suppressed without reducing the coupling strength of the rotating-wave terms, and hence the ultrastrong JC Hamiltonian is achieved. The ultrastrong JC interaction can not only be used to implement ultrafast quantum operations such as ultrafast quantum state transfer and quantum logic gates but also will open up a new route to the demonstration of quantum phase transition associated with the JC Hamiltonian across the deep-strong-coupling point. Some discussions on the experimental implementation of this scheme with circuit-QED systems are presented.