When trapped atoms are illuminated by weak lasers, off-resonant transitions cause shifts in the frequencies of the vibrational-sideband resonances. These frequency shifts may be understood in terms of Stark-shifts of the individual levels or, as proposed here, as a vibrational Bloch-Siegert shift, an effect closely related to the usual (radio-frequency or optical) Bloch-Siegert shift and associated with rapidly oscillating terms when the Rotating Wave Approximation is not made. Explicit analytic expressions are derived and compared to numerical results, and the similarities and differences between the usual and the vibrational Bloch-Siegert shifts are also spelled out.
We present a unitary equivalent spin-boson Hamiltonian in which terms can be identified which contribute to the Bloch-Siegert shift, and to the level splittings at the anticrossings associated with the Bloch-Siegert resonances. First-order degenerate perturbation theory is used to develop approximate results in the case of moderate coupling for the level splitting.
We consider a spin-boson model in which a spin 1 system is coupled to an oscillator. A unitary transformation is applied which allows a separation of terms responsible for the Bloch-Siegert shift, and terms responsible for the level splittings at anticrossings associated with Bloch-Siegert resonances. When the oscillator is highly excited, the system can maintain resonance for sequential multiphoton transitions. At lower levels of excitation, resonance cannot be maintained because energy exchange with the oscillator changes the level shift. An estimate for the critical excitation level of the …
Recently there has been theoretical and experimental interest in Bloch-Siegert shifts in an intense photon field. A perturbative treatment becomes difficult in this multiphoton regime. We present a unitary transform and rotated model, which allows us to get accurate results away from the level anticrossings. A simple variational energy estimate leads to a new expression for the dressed two-level system energy which is accurate, and useful over a wide range of the dimensionless coupling constant.
We study Rabi oscillations of the second-order Raman transition realized on dressed states of a qubit excited by an amplitude-modulated microwave field. The co-rotating component of the ultrastrong low-frequency modulation field excites virtual multiple photon processes between the dressed states and forms the Rabi frequency in the so-called rotating wave approximation (RWA). The counter-rotating modulation component also gives a significant contribution to the Rabi frequency owing to the Bloch--Siegert effect. It is shown that for properly chosen parameters of the modulation field and qubit, …
Quantum registers that combine the attractive properties of different types of qubits are useful for many different applications. They also pose a number of challenges, often associated with the large differences in coupling strengths between the different types of qubits. One example is the non-resonant effect that alternating electromagnetic fields have on the transitions of qubits that are not targeted by the specific gate operation. The example being studied here is known as Bloch-Siegert shift. Unless these shifts are accounted for and, if possible, compensated, they can completely destro…
We show that if the Rabi frequency is comparable to the Bohr frequency so that the rotating wave approximation is inappropriate, an extra oscillation is present with the Rabi oscillation. We discuss how the sensitivity of the degree of excitation to the phase of the field may pose severe constraints on precise rotations of quantum bits involving low-frequency transitions. We present a scheme for observing this effect in an atomic beam.
In a direct two-level qubit system, when the Rabi frequency is comparable to the resonance frequency, the rotating wave approximation is not appropriate. In this case, the Rabi oscillation is accompanied by another oscillation at twice the frequency of the driving field, the so called Bloch-Siegert oscillation (BSO), which depends on the initial phase of the driving field. This oscillation may restrict the precise rotation of a qubit made of direct two-level system. Here, we show that in case of an effectively two-level lambda system, the BSO is inherently negligible, implying a greater precis…
We apply a simple analytical method based on a unitary transformation to calculate the Bloch-Siegert (BS) shift over the entire driving-strength range. In quantitative comparison with the numerically exact BS shift obtained by Floquet formalism as well as the previous BS results, we confirm that our calculated results are not only accurate in the weak-driving regime but also correct in strong-driving limit. In the intermediate strong-driving regime, the calculated values of the BS shift are nearly the same as the exact ones. It turns out that our calculation for the BS shift is beyond perturba…
We study the coherent dynamics of a qubit excited by an amplitude-modulated electromagnetic field under the Rabi resonance when the frequency of the low-frequency modulation field matches the Rabi frequency in the high-frequency field. Due to destructive interference of multiple photon processes at the ultrastrong coupling between the qubit and the low-frequency driving field, Rabi oscillations result exclusively from the Bloch-Siegert effect. It is directly observed in the time-resolved coherent dynamics as the Bloch-Siegert oscillation. In this case, triplets in Fourier spectra of the cohere…
In previous work we studied the spin-boson model in the multiphoton regime, using a rotation that provides a separation between terms that contribute most of the level energies away from resonance, and terms responsible for the level splittings at the anticrossing. Here, we consider a generalization of the spin-boson model consisting of a three-level system coupled to an oscillator. We construct a similar rotation and apply it to the more complicated model. We find that the rotation provides a useful approximation to the energy levels in the multiphoton region of the new problem. We find that …
So far the Bloch-Siegert shift of the Rabi model has only been calculated numerically or by means of perturbation theory valid in either the weak or strong driving regime only. Recently Yan, Lü, and Zheng [Phys.~Rev.~A {\bf 91}, 053834 (2015)] showed how to reduce the problem to solving a system of three nonlinear equations. Here, we pursue an alternative approach based on a perturbation expansion extrapolation technique. We are thus able to derive an explicit analytical approximation formula for the Bloch-Siegert shift of the Rabi model which is valid for all parameter regimes from weak to st…
A superconducting qubit was driven in an ultrastrong fashion by an oscillatory microwave field, which was created by coupling via the nonlinear Josephson energy. The observed Stark shifts of the `atomic' levels are so pronounced that corrections even beyond the lowest-order Bloch-Siegert shift are needed to properly explain the measurements. The quasienergies of the dressed two-level system were probed by resonant absorption via a cavity, and the results are in agreement with a calculation based on the Floquet approach.
We measure the dispersive energy-level shift of an $LC$ resonator magnetically coupled to a superconducting qubit, which clearly shows that our system operates in the ultrastrong coupling regime. The large mutual kinetic inductance provides a coupling energy of $\approx0.82$~GHz, requiring the addition of counter-rotating-wave terms in the description of the Jaynes-Cummings model. We find a 50~MHz Bloch-Siegert shift when the qubit is in its symmetry point, fully consistent with our analytical model.
We show that the counter-rotating terms of the dispersive qubit-cavity Rabi model can produce relatively large and nonmonotonic Bloch-Siegert shifts in the cavity frequency as the system is driven through a quantum-to-classical transition. Using a weak microwave probe tone, we demonstrate experimentally this effect by monitoring the resonance frequency of a microwave cavity coupled to a transmon and driven by a microwave field with varying power. In the weakly driven regime (quantum phase), the Bloch-Siegert shift appears as a small constant frequency shift, while for strong drive (classical p…
We report that the Bloch-Siegert shift which appears in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy can also be shown to originate as a part of a complex drive-induced second-order susceptibility term. The shift terms thus obtained are shown to have an absorptive Kramers-Kronig pair. The theoretical treatment involves a finite time-propagation of a nuclear spin-$1/2$ system and the spin-bearing molecule under the action of thermal fluctuations acting on the latter. The finite propagator is constructed to account for many instances of thermal fluctuations occurring in a time-scale during whic…
A cavity quantum electrodynamical (QED) system beyond the strong-coupling regime is expected to exhibit intriguing quantum phenomena. Here we report a direct measurement of the photon-dressed qubit transition frequencies up to four photons by harnessing the same type of state transitions in an ultrastrongly coupled circuit-QED system realized by inductively coupling a superconducting flux qubit to a coplanar-waveguide resonator. This demonstrates a convincing observation of the photon-dressed Bloch-Siegert shift in the ultrastrongly coupled quantum system. Moreover, our results show that the p…
Comprehending the dynamical behaviour of quantum systems driven by time-varying Hamiltonians is particularly difficult. Systems with as little as two energy levels are not yet fully understood as the usual methods including diagonalisation of the Hamiltonian do not work in this setting. In fact, since the inception of Magnus' expansion in 1954, no fundamentally novel mathematical approach capable of solving the quantum equations of motion with a time-varying Hamiltonian has been devised. We report here of an entirely different non-perturbative approach, termed path-sum, which is always guarant…
We investigate the dynamics of a driven two-level system (classical Rabi model) using the counter-rotating-hybridized rotating wave method (CHRW), which is a simple method based on a unitary transformation with a parameter $ξ$. This approach is beyond the traditional rotating-wave approximation (Rabi-RWA) and more importantly, remains the RWA form with a renormalized tunneling strength and a modified driving strength. The reformulated rotating wave method not only possesses the same mathematical simplicity as the Rabi-RWA but also allows us to explore the effects of counter-rotating (CR) compo…
In liquid-state NMR quantum computation, a selective entanglement operator between qubits 2 and 3 of a three-qubit molecule is conventionally realized by applying a pair of short $π$-pulses to qubit 1. This method, called refocusing, is well suited for heteronuclear molecules. When the molecule is homonuclear, however, the $π$-pulses applied to qubit 1 often induce unwanted $z$-rotations on qubits 2 and 3, even if the $z$-components of qubits 2 and 3 are left unchanged. This phenomenon is known as the transient Bloch-Siegert effect, and compensation thereof is required for precise gate operati…
Here we use perturbation techniques based on the averaging method to investigate Rabi oscillations in cw and pulse-driven two-level systems (TLS's). By going beyond the rotating-wave approximation, especifically to second-order in perturbation, we obtain the Bloch-Siegert shift of the TLS resonant frequency, in which the resonant frequency increases with the driving field amplitude. This frequency shift implies that short resonant $π$-pulses in which the Rabi frequency is approximately 40\% or higher of the transition frequency do not achieve complete inversion in TLS's. Hence, guided by analy…
We study a realistic model for driven qubits using the numerical solution of the Bloch-Redfield equation as well as analytical approximations using a high-frequency scheme. Unlike in idealized rotating-wave models suitable for NMR or quantum optics, we study a driving term which neither is orthogonal to the static term nor leaves the adiabatic energy value constant. We investigate the underlying dynamics and analyze the spectroscopy peaks obtained in recent experiments. We show, that unlike in the rotating-wave case, this system exhibits nonlinear driving effects.We study the width of spectros…
