In cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), light-matter interaction is probed at its most fundamental level, where individual atoms are coupled to single photons stored in three-dimensional cavities. This unique possibility to experimentally explore the foundations of quantum physics has greatly evolved with the advent of circuit QED, where on-chip superconducting qubits and oscillators play the roles of two-level atoms and cavities, respectively. In the strong coupling limit, atom and cavity can exchange a photon frequently before coherence is lost. This important regime has been reached both in cavity and circuit QED, but the design flexibility and engineering potential of the latter allowed for increasing the ratio between the atom-cavity coupling rate and the cavity transition frequency above the percent level. While these experiments are well described by the renowned Jaynes-Cummings model, novel physics is expected in the ultrastrong coupling limit. Here, we report on the first experimental realization of a superconducting circuit QED system in the ultrastrong coupling limit and present direct evidence for the breakdown of the Jaynes-Cummings model.
Ultrastrong-coupling between two-level systems and radiation is important for both fundamental and applied quantum electrodynamics (QED). Such regimes are identified by the breakdown of the rotating-wave approximation, which applied to the quantum Rabi model (QRM) yields the apparently less fundamental Jaynes-Cummings model (JCM). We show that when truncating the material system to two levels, each gauge gives a different description whose predictions vary significantly for ultrastrong-coupling. QRMs are obtained through specific gauge choices, but so too is a JCM without needing the rotating-…
We study analytically and numerically the properties of Jaynes-Cummings model under monochromatic driving. The analytical results allow to understand the regime of two branches of multi-photon excitation in the case of close resonance between resonator and driven frequencies. The rotating wave approximation allows to reduce the description of original driven model to an effective Jaynes-Cummings model with strong coupling between photons and qubit. The analytical results are in a good agreement with the numerical ones even if there are certain deviations between the theory and numerics in the …
We study the nonlinear response of a driven cavity QED system in the extreme strong coupling regime where the saturation photon number is below one by many orders of magnitude. In this regime, multi-photon resonances within the Jaynes--Cummings spectrum up to high order can be resolved. We identify an intensity and frequency range of the external coherent drive for which the system exhibits bistability instead of resonant multi-photon transitions. The cavity field evolves into a mixture of the vacuum and another quasi-classical state well separated in phase space. The corresponding time evolut…
We highlight the importance of quantum fluctuations in organizing a dissipative quantum phase transition for the driven Jaynes-Cummings interaction with variable qubit-cavity detuning. The system response presents a substantial difference from the predictions of the semiclassical theory, the extent of which is revealed in the properties of quantum bistability, and visualized with the help of quasi-distribution functions for the cavity field, subject to an appropriate scale parameter. States anticipated by the neoclassical theory of radiation coexist in the quantum picture, following the occurr…
The connectivity and tunability of superconducting quantum devices provide a rich platform to build quantum simulators and study novel many-body physics. Here we study quantum phase transition in a detuned multi-connected Jaynes-Cummings lattice, which can be constructed with superconducting circuits. This model is composed of alternatively connected qubits and cavity modes. Using a numerical method, we show that by varying the detuning between the qubits and the cavities, a phase transition from the superfluid phase to the Mott insulator phase occurs at commensurate fillings in a one-dimensio…
We propose the effective simulation of light-matter ultrastrong-coupling phenomena with strong-coupling systems. Recent theory and experiments have shown that the quantum Rabi Hamiltonian can be simulated by a Jaynes--Cummings system with the addition of two classical drives. This allows to implement nonlinear processes that do not conserve the total number of excitations. However, parity is still a conserved quantity in the quantum Rabi Hamiltonian, which forbids a wide family of processes involving virtual transitions that break this conservation. Here, we show that these parity-non-conservi…
An accurate modeling of a Josephson junction that is embedded in an arbitrary environment is of crucial importance for qubit design. We present a formalism to obtain a Lindblad master equation that describes the evolution of the system. As the qubit degrees of freedom oscillate with a well-defined frequency $ω_q$, the environment only has to be modeled close to this frequency. Different from alternative approaches, we show that this goal can be achieved by modeling the environment with only few degrees of freedom. We treat the example of a transmon qubit coupled to a stripline resonator. We de…
A generalisation of the Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard model for coupled-cavity arrays is introduced, where the embedded two-level system in each cavity is replaced by a $Ξ$-type three-level system. We demonstrate that the resulting effective polariton-polariton interactions at each site are both two-body and three-body. By tuning the ratio of the two transition dipole matrix elements, we show that the strength and sign of the two-body interaction can be controlled whilst maintaining a three-body repulsion. We then proceed to demonstrate how different two-body and three-body interactions alter the me…
We study experimentally and theoretically a coherently-driven strongly-coupled quantum dot-microcavity system. Our focus is on physics of the unexplored intermediate excitation regime where the resonant laser field dresses a strongly-coupled single exciton-photon (polariton) system resulting in a ladder of laser-dressed Jaynes-Cummings states. In that case both the coupling of the emitter to the confined light field of the microcavity and to the light field of the external laser are equally important, as proved by observation of injection pulling of the polariton branches by an external laser.…
