TY - JOUR T1 - Frustration-induced anomalous transport and strong photon decay in waveguide QED JF - Phys. Rev. Research Y1 - 2021 A1 - Ron Belyansky A1 - Seth Whitsitt A1 - Rex Lundgren A1 - Yidan Wang A1 - Andrei Vrajitoarea A1 - Andrew A. Houck A1 - Alexey V. Gorshkov AB -

We study the propagation of photons in a one-dimensional environment consisting of two non-interacting species of photons frustratingly coupled to a single spin-1/2. The ultrastrong frustrated coupling leads to an extreme mixing of the light and matter degrees of freedom, resulting in the disintegration of the spin and a breakdown of the "dressed-spin", or polaron, description. Using a combination of numerical and analytical methods, we show that the elastic response becomes increasingly weak at the effective spin frequency, showing instead an increasingly strong and broadband response at higher energies. We also show that the photons can decay into multiple photons of smaller energies. The total probability of these inelastic processes can be as large as the total elastic scattering rate, or half of the total scattering rate, which is as large as it can be. The frustrated spin induces strong anisotropic photon-photon interactions that are dominated by inter-species interactions. Our results are relevant to state-of-the-art circuit and cavity quantum electrodynamics experiments.

VL - 3 UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.03690 CP - 032058 U5 - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.L032058 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Transport and dynamics in the frustrated two-bath spin-boson model Y1 - 2020 A1 - Ron Belyansky A1 - Seth Whitsitt A1 - Rex Lundgren A1 - Yidan Wang A1 - Andrei Vrajitoarea A1 - Andrew A. Houck A1 - Alexey V. Gorshkov AB -

We study the strong coupling dynamics as well as transport properties of photons in the two-bath spin-boson model, in which a spin-1/2 particle is frustratingly coupled to two independent Ohmic bosonic baths. Using a combination of numerical and analytical methods, we show that the frustration in this model gives rise to rich physics in a very wide range of energies. This is in contrast to the one-bath spin-boson model, where the non-trivial physics occurs at an energy scale close to the renormalized spin frequency. The renormalized spin frequency in the two-bath spin-boson model is still important, featuring in different observables, including the non-equiblirum dynamics of both the spin and the baths along with the elastic transport properties of a photon. The latter however reveals a much more complex structure. The elastic scattering displays non-monotonic behavior at high frequencies, and is very different in the two channels: intra- and inter-bath scattering. The photon can also be inelastically scattered, a process in which it is split into several photons of smaller energies. We show that such inelastic processes are highly anisotropic, with the outgoing particles being preferentially emitted into only one of the baths. Moreover, the inelastic scattering rate is parameterically larger than in the one-bath case, and can even exceed the total elastic rate. Our results can be verified with state-of-the-art circuit and cavity quantum electrodynamics experiments. 

UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.03690 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Interacting Qubit-Photon Bound States with Superconducting Circuits JF - Phys. Rev. Y1 - 2019 A1 - Neereja M. Sundaresan A1 - Rex Lundgren A1 - Guanyu Zhu A1 - Alexey V. Gorshkov A1 - Andrew A. Houck AB -

Qubits strongly coupled to a photonic crystal give rise to many exotic physical scenarios, beginning with single and multi-excitation qubit-photon dressed bound states comprising induced spatially localized photonic modes, centered around the qubits, and the qubits themselves. The localization of these states changes with qubit detuning from the band-edge, offering an avenue of in situ control of bound state interaction. Here, we present experimental results from a device with two qubits coupled to a superconducting microwave photonic crystal and realize tunable on-site and inter-bound state interactions. We observe a fourth-order two photon virtual process between bound states indicating strong coupling between the photonic crystal and qubits. Due to their localization-dependent interaction, these states offer the ability to create one-dimensional chains of bound states with tunable and potentially long-range interactions that preserve the qubits' spatial organization, a key criterion for realization of certain quantum many-body models. The widely tunable, strong and robust interactions demonstrated with this system are promising benchmarks towards realizing larger, more complex systems of bound states.

VL - X 9 UR - http://arxiv.org/abs/1801.10167 CP - 011021 U5 - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.9.011021 ER -