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Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Spectral and dynamical validity of the rotating-wave approximation in the quantum and semiclassical Rabi models [Invited]

H. F. A. Coleman, E. K. Twyeffort Irish

Published Jun 3, 2024• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Ultrastrong coupling (USC) in the quantum Rabi model, characterized by the breakdown of the rotating-wave approximation (RWA), has emerged as a topic of considerable interest and study. This critical reevaluation of the validity of the RWA concludes that the accepted definition of USC in terms of a fixed ratio of coupling to field frequency is inadequate. Connecting an improved spectral validity criterion with the derivation of the semiclassical limit suggests that the dynamical validity of the quantum RWA should be linked to that of the corresponding semiclassical model. This, however, is not supported by numerical calculations of coherent-state dynamics, which unambiguously demonstrate that spectral validity does not imply dynamical validity and reveal surprisingly complicated dependence on coupling and field amplitude.

DOI
10.1364/josab.524837

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Ultrastrong coupling (USC) in the quantum Rabi model, characterized by the breakdown of the rotating-wave approximation (RWA), has emerged as a topic of considerable interest and study. This critical reevaluation of the validity of the RWA concludes that the accepted definition of USC in terms of a fixed ratio of coupling to field frequency is inadequate. Connecting an improved spectral validity criterion with the derivation of the semiclassical limit suggests that the dynamical validity of the quantum RWA should be linked to that of the corresponding semiclassical model. This, however, is not supported by numerical calculations of coherent-state dynamics, which unambiguously demonstrate that spectral validity does not imply dynamical validity and reveal surprisingly complicated dependence on coupling and field amplitude.
Ultrastrong coupling (USC) in the quantum Rabi model, characterized by the breakdown of the rotating-wave approximation (RWA) has become a topic of considerable interest and study. This critical reevaluation of the validity of the RWA concludes that the accepted definition of USC in terms of a fixed ratio of coupling to field frequency is inadequate. Connecting an improved spectral validity criterion with the derivation of the semiclassical limit predicts that the dynamical validity of the quantum RWA should be linked to that of the corresponding semiclassical model. This, however, is not supported by numerical calculations of coherent-state dynamics, which unambiguously demonstrate that spectral validity does not imply dynamical validity and reveal surprisingly complicated dependence on coupling and field amplitude.
Abstract We apply a simple analytical method based on a unitary transformation to calculate the ground state, its excitation spectrum and quantum dynamic evolution of physical quantities for the double-photon quantum Rabi Hamiltonian over the wide coupling-strength range. The concise analytical method possesses the same mathematical simplicity as the approach of the rotating wave approximation (RWA). By quantitative comparison with the numerically exact result obtained by matrix diagonalization, we confirm that our calculated results obtained by transformed rotating-wave method are not only accurate in the weak coupling regime but also correct in intermediate strong-coupling case. In the intermediate ultrastrong-coupling regime, the calculated values of the ground state and lower lying excited states are nearly the same as the exact ones. It turns out that our calculation for the energy spectrum is beyond the ordinary-RWA. Meanwhile, we demonstrate the signatures resulting from the counter-rotating wave terms by monitoring the population, the coherence, the squeezing of the photon under the ultra-strong conditions. In particular, we find that when the frequency of the photon is much larger than the transition frequency of the system, the lineshape of the time evolution becomes complicated with the increase of the coupling strength, which may be verified experimentally.
We investigate the emergence of semiclassical dynamics in the quantum Rabi model using a recently developed limiting procedure that formally establishes correspondence with the semiclassical Rabi Hamiltonian [E. K. Twyeffort Irish and A. D. Armour, Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 183603 (2022)]. While the limit itself is defined at the Hamiltonian level, how it is reached depends on the choice of quantum states. Defining a set of quantitative measures that capture the differences between quantum and semiclassical dynamics, we examine convergence to the semiclassical limit when the field is prepared in a displaced number state. These states, which interpolate to Fock states for zero displacement, are more general than the set of coherent states usually employed when considering the emergence of semiclassical behavior. Numerical computations of these measures consistently demonstrate the progressive emergence of semiclassical behavior as the joint limit of vanishing coupling and infinite displacement is approached. Complementing the numerical results, analytical approximations are developed that reproduce the behavior in the vicinity of the semiclassical limit with a high degree of fidelity and allow scaling relations to be derived. Although any initial displaced number state will eventually converge to the corresponding semiclassical dynamics as the limit is taken, the rate of convergence depends on the Fock number nnn of the state. States with larger values of nnn, which behave less classically than coherent states, converge more slowly to the limit.
We present an analytical method for the two-qubit quantum Rabi model. While still operating in the frame of the generalized rotating-wave approximation (GRWA), our method further embraces the idea of introducing variational parameters. The optimal value of the variational parameter is determined by minimizing the energy function of the ground state. Comparing with numerically exact results, we show that our method evidently improves the accuracy of the conventional GRWA in calculating fundamental physical quantities, such as energy spectra, mean photon number, and dynamics. Interestingly, the accuracy of our method allows us to reproduce the asymptotic behavior of a mean photon number in a large frequency ratio for the ground state and investigate the quasiperiodical structure of the time evolution, which the GRWA is incapable of predicting. The applicable parameter ranges cover the ultrastrong-coupling regime, which will be helpful to recent experiments.
We considered the semiclassical Rabi model, that is, a two-level system interacting with a single-mode, classical field. In resonance and for an arbitrary initial state of the system, we obtained a simple, approximate, and analytic solution that takes into account the counterrotating terms and that is accurate as long as the Rabi frequency is smaller than or equal to 1/2 (1/4) of the angular frequency of the field and 1 (10) Rabi oscillations are considered. In addition, the approximate solution has the same level of complexity as that obtained with the rotating-wave-approximation (RWA) and allows one to describe the evolution of the Bloch vector of the system in terms of a \textit{slow-precessional} and a \textit{fast-nutational} motion similar to that of a symmetric top with one point fixed. Finally, the approximate solution also leads to a simple criterion that allows one to determine the accuracy of the solution in the RWA.