Optical signatures of quantum phase transitions in a light-matter system
Abstract
Information about quantum phase transitions in conventional condensed matter systems, must be sought by probing the matter system itself. By contrast, we show that mixed matter-light systems offer a distinct advantage in that the photon field carries clear signatures of the associated quantum critical phenomena. Having derived an accurate, size-consistent Hamiltonian for the photonic field in the well-known Dicke model, we predict striking behavior of the optical squeezing and photon statistics near the phase transition. The corresponding dynamics resemble those of a degenerate parametric amplifier. Our findings boost the motivation for exploring exotic quantum phase transition phenomena in atom-cavity, nanostructure-cavity, and nanostructure-photonic-band-gap systems.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0609095,
title = {Optical signatures of quantum phase transitions in a light-matter system},
author = {Timothy C. Jarrett and Alexandra Olaya-Castro and Neil F. Johnson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0609095},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 4 figures