Dissipative Dicke Model with Collective Atomic Decay: Bistability, Noise-Driven Activation and Non-Thermal First Order Superradiance Transition

The Dicke model describes the coherent interaction of a laser-driven ensemble of two level atoms with a quantized light field. It is realized within cavity QED experiments, which in addition to the coherent Dicke dynamics feature dissipation due to e.g. atomic spontaneous emission and cavity photon loss. Spontaneous emission supports the uncorrelated decay of individual atomic excitations as well as the enhanced, collective decay of an excitation that is shared by $N$ atoms and whose strength is determined by the cavity geometry. We derive a many-body master equation for the dissipative Dicke model including both spontaneous emission channels and analyze its dynamics on the basis of Heisenberg-Langevin and stochastic Bloch equations. We find that the collective loss channel leads to a region of bistability between the empty and the superradiant state. Transitions between these states are driven by non-thermal, markovian noise. The interplay between dissipative and coherent elements leads to a genuine non-equilibrium dynamics in the bistable regime, which is expressed via a non-conservative force and a multiplicative noise kernel appearing in the stochastic Bloch equations. We present a semiclassical approach, based on stochastic nonlinear optical Bloch equations, which for the infinite-range Dicke Model become exact in the large-$N$-limit. The absence of an effective free energy functional, however, necessitates to include fluctuation corrections with $\mathcal{O}(1/N)$ for finite $N<\infty$ to locate the non-thermal first-order phase transition between the superradiant and the empty cavity.Comment: as published in Physical Review

Effects of Smooth Boundaries on Topological Edge Modes in Optical Lattices

Since the experimental realization of synthetic gauge fields for neutral atoms, the simulation of topologically non-trivial phases of matter with ultracold atoms has become a major focus of cold atom experiments. However, several obvious differences exist between cold atom and solid state systems, for instance the finite size of the atomic cloud and the smooth confining potential. In this article we show that sharp boundaries are not required to realize quantum Hall or quantum spin Hall physics in optical lattices and, on the contrary, that edge states which belong to a smooth confinement exhibit additional interesting properties, such as spatially resolved splitting and merging of bulk bands and the emergence of robust auxiliary states in bulk gaps to preserve the topological quantum numbers. In addition, we numerically validate that these states are robust against disorder. Finally, we analyze possible detection methods, with a focus on Bragg spectroscopy, to demonstrate that the edge states can be detected and that Bragg spectroscopy can reveal how topological edge states are connected to the different bulk bands.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, updated figures and minor text correction

Many-Body Quantum Optics with Decaying Atomic Spin States: (γ\gamma, κ\kappa) Dicke model

We provide a theory for quantum-optical realizations of the open Dicke model with internal, atomic spin states subject to spontaneous emission with rate $\gamma$. This introduces a second decay channel for excitations to irreversibly dissipate into the environment, in addition to the photon loss with rate $\kappa$, which is composed of individual atomic decay processes and a collective atomic decay mechanism. The strength of the latter is determined by the cavity geometry. We compute the mean-field non-equilibrium steady states for spin and photon observables in the long-time limit, $t\rightarrow \infty$. Although $\gamma$ does not conserve the total angular momentum of the spin array, we argue that our solution is exact in the thermodynamic limit, for the number of atoms $N\rightarrow \infty$. In light of recent and upcoming experiments realizing superradiant phase transitions using internal atomic states with pinned atoms in optical lattices, our work lays the foundation for the pursuit of a new class of open quantum magnets coupled to quantum light.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures; added appendix for the derivation of a collective atomic decay mechanism in a Lindblad formalism; version as published in Physical Review

Vanishing density of states in weakly disordered Weyl semimetals

The Brillouin zone of the clean Weyl semimetal contains points at which the density of states (DoS) vanishes. Previous work suggested that below a certain critical concentration of impurities this features is preserved including in the presence of disorder. This result got criticized for its neglect of rare disorder fluctuations which might bind quantum states and hence generate a finite DoS. We here show that in spite of their existence these states are so fragile that their contribution effectively vanishes when averaged over continuous disorder distributions. This means that the integrity of the nodal points remains protected for weak disorder.Comment: 4 page

Majorana Loop Models for Measurement-Only Quantum Circuits

Projective measurements in random quantum circuits lead to a rich breadth of entanglement phases and extend the realm of non-unitary quantum dynamics. Here we explore the connection between measurement-only quantum circuits in one spatial dimension and the statistical mechanics of loop models in two dimensions. While Gaussian Majorana circuits admit a microscopic mapping to loop models, for non-Gaussian, i.e., generic Clifford, circuits a corresponding mapping may emerge only on a coarse grained scale. We then focus on a fundamental symmetry of loop models: the orientability of world lines. We discuss how orientability enters in the measurement framework, acting as a separatrix for the universal long-wavelength behavior in a circuit. When orientability is broken, the circuit falls into the universality class of closely packed loops with crossings (CPLC) and features a Goldstone phase with a peculiar, universal $\log^2(L)$-scaling of the entanglement entropy. In turn, when orientability is preserved, the long-wavelength behavior of the circuit mimics that of (coupled) two-dimensional Potts models. We demonstrate the strength of the loop model approach by numerically simulating a variety of measurement-only Clifford circuits. Upon varying the set of measured operators, a rich circuit dynamics is observed, ranging from CPLC to the $1$-state Potts model (percolation), the $2$-state Potts model (Ising) and coupled Potts models (BKT) universality class. Loop models thus provide a handle to access a large class of measurement-only circuits and yield a blueprint on how to realize desired entanglement phases by measurement

Controlling excitation avalanches in driven Rydberg gases

Recent experiments with strongly interacting, driven Rydberg ensembles have introduced a promising setup for the study of self-organized criticality (SOC) in cold atom systems. Based on this setup, we theoretically propose a control mechanism for the paradigmatic avalanche dynamics of SOC in the form of a time-dependent drive amplitude. This gives access to a variety of avalanche dominated, self-organization scenarios, prominently including self-organized criticality, as well as sub- and supercritical dynamics. We analyze the dependence of the dynamics on external scales and spatial dimensionality. It demonstrates the potential of driven Rydberg systems as a playground for the exploration of an extended SOC phenomenology and their relation to other common scenarios of SOC, such as, e.g., in neural networks and on graphs