We investigate the three-level Dicke model, which describes a fundamental class of light-matter systems. We determine the phase diagram in the presence of dissipation, which we assume to derive from photon loss. Utilizing both analytical and numerical methods we characterize incommensurate time crystalline states in this phase diagram, as well as light-induced and light-enhanced superradiant states. As a primary application, we demonstrate that a shaken atom-cavity system is naturally approximated via a parametrically driven open three-level Dicke model.
We investigate the three-level Dicke model, which describes a fundamental class of light-matter systems. We determine the phase diagram in the presence of dissipation, which we assume to derive from photon loss. Utilizing both analytical and numerical methods we characterize incommensurate time crystalline states in this phase diagram, as well as light-induced and light-enhanced superradiant states. As a primary application, we demonstrate that a shaken atom-cavity system is naturally approximated via a parametrically driven open three-level Dicke model.
We investigate the three-level Dicke model, which describes a fundamental class of light-matter systems. We determine the phase diagram in the presence of dissipation, which we assume to derive from photon loss. Utilizing both analytical and numerical methods we characterize the incommensurate time crystalline, light-induced, and light-enhanced superradiant states in the phase diagram for the parametrically driven system. As a primary application, we demonstrate that a shaken atom-cavity system is naturally approximated via a parametrically driven dissipative three-level Dicke model.
Control and manipulation of quantum engineered systems allows for the utilization of time-dependent parametric modulations for accessing novel out-of-equilibrium phenomena. In the absence of such driving, the dissipative Dicke model exhibits a fascinating out-of-equilibrium many-body phase transition as a function of a coupling between a driven photonic cavity and numerous two-level atoms. We study the effect of a parametric modulation of this coupling and discover a rich phase diagram as a function of the modulation strength. We find that in addition to the established normal and super-radiant phases, a new phase with pulsed superradiance, which we term dynamical normal phase, appears when the system is parametrically driven. Employing different methods, we characterize the different phases and the transitions between them. Specific heed is paid to the role of dissipation in determining the phase boundaries. Our analysis paves the road for the experimental study of dynamically stabilized phases of interacting light and matter.
The interplay between many-body interactions and controlled dissipation provides a rich setting for nonequilibrium quantum phases. We explore the superradiant phase transitions in a Rydberg-interacting open Dicke model with cavity loss and local dissipation. We find that the nonlinear feedback from atomic interactions stabilizes the atomic collective excited state and induces resonant collective motion, which can be further converted into robust superradiant oscillations with the inclusion of local dissipation. Beyond the mean-field approximation, we prove this system can support the finite-size local dissipative temporal order, i.e., continuous time crystal, from evidences of the decreasing damping of a finite-frequency Liouvillian mode and the linear-size scaling of quantum fluctuations. The correlation between the atomic colletive dynamics and the cavity photon number makes our findings easy to detect from output optical signal. By bridging interacting atomic matter and driven-dissipative cavity QED, our Rydberg-interacting Dicke model provides a unique spin-1/2 platform for exploring dynamical phase transitions and macroscopic temporal order in open quantum matter.
The Dicke model is a paradigmatic quantum-optical model describing the interaction of a collection of two-level systems with a single bosonic mode. Effective implementations of this model made it possible to observe the emergence of superradiance, i.e., cooperative phenomena arising from the collective nature of light-matter interactions. Via reservoir engineering and analogue quantum simulation techniques, current experimental platforms allow us not only to implement the Dicke model but also to design more exotic interactions, such as the two-photon Dicke model. In the Hamiltonian case, this model presents an interesting phase diagram characterized by two quantum criticalities: a superradiant phase transition and a spectral collapse, that is, the coalescence of discrete energy levels into a continuous band. Here, we investigate the effects of both qubit and photon dissipation on the phase transition and on the instability induced by the spectral collapse. Using a mean-field decoupling approximation, we analytically obtain the steady-state expectation values of the observables signaling a symmetry breaking, identifying a first-order phase transition from the normal to the superradiant phase. Our stability analysis unveils a very rich phase diagram, which features stable, bistable, and unstable phases depending on the dissipation rate.
Present-day experiments have started to couple traditional simulations of ultracold atom experiments with quantum light-fields in cavities. This has provided a wealth of op- portunities to enlarge the number of interaction potentials: cavity mediated long-range interactions compete with kinetic energies, longitudinal fields, short-ranged collisional or magnetic spin-spin interactions. The intracavity many-body lattice models often have to be maintained far from equilibrium through the presence of external driving lasers that help to boost and engineer the various interaction potentials. The steady influx of energy is compensated by a steady stream of energy out of the atom-cavity system for example by photon losses or atomic spontaneous emission. Several experiments have demonstrated that such environments can give rise to new competing quantum phases. \nBut this long-standing ambition to push for models with tailorable interaction potentials can bring with it also considerable challenges in their theoretical description, since sponta- neous symmetry breaking transitions in many body lattice systems coupled to dynamical light-fields with single-photon character occur in the presence of drive and dissipation for the photonic force carriers. This clearly calls for model systems where the above men- tioned interplay of interactions, drive, dissipation and cooperative many-body behaviour can be theoretically studied to provide simple, experimentally verifiable predictions. \nThe Dicke model is, through its simplicity (an exactly solved ferromagnet with infinite range atom-atom interactions mediated by a single cavity mode), an exceptionally well- suited candidate. As the generic model for atom-light interactions, it has been experimen- tally realized in a variety of modern quantum optical systems, highlighting its relevance for present-day research. The Dicke model is also highly versatile itself. It has been extended into the dissipative realm, was promoted to account for multiple optical light modes and was used to describe multiple, coupled single-mode cavity structures. It was adapted to treat spin-selective coupling to a cavity to describe superradiance phase tran- sitions in multi-level atomic systems. Moreover, it was realised in electronic circuits where the dipole coupling of real atoms to single mode fields is replaced by a capacitive cou- pling of artificial atoms to a resonator mode. This illustrates that the Dicke model and its extended variants are ’future-proof’ and continue to be of relevance for fundamental light-matter interactions and for driven-dissipative phase transitions. \nIn this thesis, we investigate magnetic phase transitions in driven-dissipative atomic en- sembles interacting with quantum light. We present three research projects on variants of cooperative radiation of an ensemble of laser driven two-level atoms in a single mode optical cavity, as described by the Dicke model. \nThroughout the chapters 2,3 and 4 that contain the main body of research of this thesis, we investigate phase transitions between non-equilibrium stationary states in engineered quantum-optical systems each of which extends the conventional Dicke model physics. As a starting point, we map the quantum equations of motion onto a set of semiclassical nonlinear stochastic equations and analyse their stationary states and instabilities with master equations for atomic spin and photon mean-field amplitudes. These are used to obtain experimentally relevant parameters such as critical atom-light couplings for phase transitions, phase diagrams and properties of stationary non-equilibrium states in addition to cavity output spectra that identify the imprint of magnetic correlations in the light-field. \nIn chapter 2, we help resolve a discrepancy between earlier experimental investigations of the critical atom-light coupling strength for the superradiance transition in the Dicke model: higher external pumping strengths than theoretically predicted were needed to observe a coherent, superradiant state of the light field in an optical cavity. By including incoherent spontaneous emission of atomic excitations, we extend the dissipative Dicke model to a two loss channel variant containing both photon leakage and atomic decay that reproduces the experimentally observed critical atom-light coupling. \nRecent experiments have started to interface quantum many body lattice models with coherent cavity fields, thereby allowing to realize new quantum phases through competing atom-cavity and atom-atom interactions. In chapter 3, we consider a simplified model for such a set-up where a single quantized mode of the light-field interacts with an ensemble of Rydberg-dressed atoms inside a high finesse optical cavity. This model provides a base case for further studies of quantum magnets in optical cavities. At the heart of this model is a competition of short- (dipolar atom-atom) and long-range (atom-light) interactions at the Hamiltonian level in the presence of both spontaneous emission and photon leak- age through the cavity mirrors. We show that different magnetic phases can coexist with coherent atomic radiation and provide clear experimental signatures to identify the mag- netic structure and intra-cavity dynamics. We suggest an experimental level-scheme for a quantum optical implementation of our model. \nIn chapter 4 we consider a generic, collective decay for many-body excitations in the paradigmatic Dicke model. This extension drastically enriches the dynamics as it induces a bicritical point and a bistable regime dominated by true non-equilibrium fluctuations that induce a dissipative first-order phase transition that can only be resolved by including finite fluctuation corrections with the help of stochastic Langevin equations. We investigate the hysteretic response to time-dependent ramps of the atom-light coupling. Discontinuous first-order phase transitions where metastable states coexist in a hysteresis domain have been investigated in recent dissipative quantum-optical experiments. We review noise- activation far from thermal equilibrium in chapter 5.
Interactions among emitters provide a powerful means of controlling collective light--matter phenomena, yet their role in superradiant criticality has not been thoroughly investigated. Here we construct a minimal model that can yield analytical insights --- a Dicke model with two interacting atoms coupled to a single mode cavity --- to study such interaction effects. We show that interaction changes the phase boundary, and may even completely suppress the atom-photon coupling threshold for superradiance and change the universality class of the phase transition. We further study the dissipative phase transition and quantum dynamics in the presence of dissipation channels such as photon loss and spin relaxation. Our results demonstrate important roles played by the atom-atom interaction and how it can be engineered to control atom-photon coupling.