The Rabi Hamiltonian describes a single mode of electromagnetic radiation interacting with a two-level atom. Using the coupled cluster method, we investigate the time evolution of this system from an initially empty field mode and an unexcited atom. We give results for the atomic inversion and field occupation, and find that the virtual processes cause the field to be squeezed. No anti-bunching occurs.
We have investigated vacuum Rabi oscillation of an atom coupled with single-mode cavity field exactly, and compared the results with that of J-C model. The results show that, there is damping Rabi oscillation for an atom, even in strong coupling regime. For small detuning and weak coupling case, the probability for the atom in excited state oscillates against time with different frequency and amplitude from that of J-C model. It exhibits the counter-rotating wave interaction could significantly effect the dynamic behavior of the atom, even under the condition in which the RWA is considered to …
We study the coherent dynamics of an excited two-level atom in a vacuum optomechanical cavity and find that the original atom-cavity Rabi oscillation is sinusoidally modulated by the light-mechanics coupling as the Rabi splitting is on resonance with the mechanical mode. We develop an analytic model in a three-dimensional Hilbert subspace to explain this phenomenon and employ numerical simulations of the density-matrix master equation to confirm our analysis. We also show that the modulated Rabi oscillation survives in presence of dissipations and other non-ideal factors.
We present an interaction scheme that exhibits a dynamical consequence of virtual photons carried by a vacuum-field dressed two-level atom in the ultrastrong coupling regime. We show that, with the aid of an external driving field, virtual photons provide a transition matrix element that enables the atom to evolve coherently and reversibly to an auxiliary level accompanied by the emission of a real photon. The process corresponds to a type of vacuum Rabi oscillation, and we show that the effective vacuum Rabi frequency is proportional to the amplitude of a single virtual photon in the ground s…
Comparison of theory of Rabi oscillations with experiment [M. Wilczewski and M. Czachor, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 79}, 033836 (2009)] suggests that cavity lifetime parameters obtained in measurements with many photons may be much smaller than those applicable to almost vacuum states of light. In this context we show that the conclusion remains unchanged even if one takes a more realistic description of the initial state of light in cavity.
We predict large cooperative effect involving two atom two photon vacuum Rabi oscillations in a high quality cavity. The two photon emission occurs as a result of simultaneous de-excitation of both atoms with two photon resonance condition $ω_1+ω_2\approx ω_a+ω_b$, where $ω_1$, $ω_2$ are the atomic transition frequencies and $ω_a$, $ω_b$ are the frequencies of the emitted photons. The actual resonance condition depends on the vacuum Rabi couplings. The effect can be realized either with identical atoms in a bimodal cavity or with nonidentical atoms in a single mode cavity.
Considering the intrinsic nonlinearity in a nanomechanical resonator coupled to a charge qubit, vacuum Rabi splitting effect is studied in a nanomechanical QED (qubit-resonator) system. A driven nonlinear Jaynes-Cummings model describes the dynamics of this qubit-resonator system. Using quantum regression theorem and master equation approach, we have calculated the two-time correlation spectrum analytically. In the weak driving limit, these analytical results clarify the influence of the driving strength and nonlinearity parameter on the correlation spectrum. Also, numerical calculations confi…
The transmission spectrum for one atom strongly coupled to the field of a high-finesse optical resonator is observed to exhibit a clearly resolved vacuum-Rabi splitting characteristic of the normal modes in the eigenvalue spectrum of the atom-cavity system. A new Raman scheme for cooling atomic motion along the cavity axis enables a complete spectrum to be recorded for an individual atom trapped within the cavity mode, in contrast to all previous measurements in cavity QED that have required averaging over many atoms.
Squeezed states of harmonic oscillators are a central resource for continuous-variable quantum sensing, computation and communication. Here we propose a method for the generation of very good approximations to highly squeezed vacuum states with low excess anti-squeezing using only a few oscillator-qubit coupling gates through a Rabi-type interaction Hamiltonian. This interaction can be implemented with several different methods, which has previously been demonstrated in superconducting circuit and trapped-ion platforms. The protocol is compatible with other protocols manipulating quantum harmo…
he effect of the counter-rotating terms in the Jaynes-Cummings model is investigated with an extended coherent-state approach. The counter-rotating terms greatly modify the vacuum Rabi splitting. Two peaks with different heights in the weak coupling regime and more than two peaks in the intermediate coupling regime are predicted. The collapses and revivals in the evolution of the atomic population inversion disappear in the intermediate coupling regime, but reappear in the strong coupling regime. This reappearance is similar to that under the rotating-wave approximation, attributed to the summ…
The paper continues the analysis of vacuum Rabi oscillations we started in Part I [Phys. Rev. A {\bf 79}, 033836 (2009)]. Here we concentrate on experimental consequences for cavity QED of two different classes of representations of harmonic oscillator Lie algebras. The zero-temperature master equation, derived in Part I for irreducible representations of the algebra, is reformulated in a reducible representation that models electromagnetic fields by a gas of harmonic oscillator wave packets. The representation is known to introduce automatic regularizations that in irreducible representations…
For two discrete-level quantum systems in interaction, we follow the displacement in the complex plane of the eigen-energies of the compound system when the spectrum of one of the two systems becomes continuous. These new points are usually called resonances. This allows us to define and to calculate a critical value of the coupling constant which separates two well-known coupling regimes. We also give an example of these resonances for the hydrogen atom coupled to the continuum of the states of the transverse electromagnetic field in the vacuum. We justify that some resonances be neglected.
We study the all-optical time-control of the strong coupling between a single cascade three-level quantum emitter and a microcavity. We find that only specific arrival-times of the control pulses succeed in switching-off the Rabi oscillations. Depending on the arrival times of control pulses, a variety of exotic non-adiabatic cavity quantum electrodynamics effects can be observed. We show that only control pulses with specific arrival times are able to suddenly switch-off and -on first-order coherence of cavity photons, without affecting their strong coupling population dynamics. Such behavior…
Spin squeezing by geometric focusing in vacuum Rabi oscillations
International Center for Quantum Materials, School of Physics, Peking University（北京大学物理学院量子材料中心）；Beijing Key Laboratory of Quantum Devices, Peking University（北京大学量子器件北京市重点实验室）；National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and School of Physics, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University（南京大学固体微结构物理国家重点实验室、物理学院、现代工程与应用科学协同创新中心）；MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院电子研究实验室与MIT-哈佛超冷原子中心）
We report the observation of the vacuum Rabi splitting of a single quantum emitter by measuring its direct spontaneous emission into free space. We used a semiconductor quantum dot inside a photonic crystal nanocavity, in conjunction with an appropriate cavity design and filtering with a polarizer and an aperture, enabling the extraction of the inherently-weak emitter's signal. The emitter's vacuum Rabi spectra exhibit clear differences to those measured by detecting the cavity photon leakage. Moreover, we observed an asymmetric vacuum Rabi spectrum induced by interference between the emitter …
The demonstration of enhanced spontaneous emission of nanoscaled optical emitters near metallic nanoparticles and the recent realization of a nanolaser based on surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (spaser) encourage the search for strong coupling regime at the nanoscale. Here we propose the concept of nanopolaritons. We demonstrate with accurate scattering calculations that the strong coupling regime of a single quantum emitter (a semiconductor quantum dot) placed in the gap between two metallic nanoparticles can be achieved. The largest dimension of the investiga…
We report time-domain observation of vacuum Rabi oscillations in a single quantum dot strongly coupled to a nanocavity under incoherent optical carrier injection. We realize a photonic crystal nanocavity with a very high quality factor of >80,000 and employ it to clearly resolve the ultrafast vacuum Rabi oscillations by simple photoluminescence-based experiments. We found that the time-domain vacuum Rabi oscillations were largely modified when changing the pump wavelength and intensity, even when marginal changes were detected in the corresponding photoluminescence spectra. We analyze the meas…
The 1996 Brune {\it et al.} experiment on vacuum Rabi oscillation is analyzed by means of alternative models of atom-reservoir interaction. Agreement with experimental Rabi oscillation data can be obtained if one defines jump operators in the dressed-state basis, and takes into account thermal fluctuations between dressed states belonging to the same manifold. Such low-frequency transitions could be ignored in a closed cavity, but the cavity employed in the experiment was open, which justifies our assumption. The cavity quality factor corresponding to the data is $Q=3.31\cdot 10^{10}$, whereas…
Toida et al. claim in their recent article [Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 066802 (2013)] that they `report a direct observation of vacuum Rabi splitting in a GaAs/AlGaAs double quantum dot (DQD) based charge qubit coupled with a superconducting coplanar waveguide (CPW) resonator'. In this comment, we challenge the main claims made in their paper and show that their results: a) do not provide any evidence of vacuum Rabi oscillations and b) do not provide any direct evidence of vacuum Rabi splitting.
We study numerically the dynamics of the Rabi Hamiltonian, describing the interaction of a single cavity mode and a two-level atom without the rotating wave approximation, subjected to damping and dephasing reservoirs included via usual Lindblad superoperators in the master equation. We show that the combination of the antirotating term and the atomic dephasing leads to linear asymptotic photons generation from vacuum. We reveal the origins of the phenomenon and estimate its importance in realistic situations.
We study two models describing the interaction of a two-level system with two quantum field modes. The first one is equivalent to a dissipative two-state system with just two boson fields in the absence of tunneling. The second describes two orthogonal fields interacting with the corresponding orthogonal dipoles of a two-level system. We show that both models present a partial two-mode $SU(2)$ symmetry and that they can be solved in the exceptional case of resonant fields. We study their ground state configurations, that is, we find the quantum precursors of the corresponding semi-classical ph…
When an atom strongly couples to a cavity, it can undergo coherent vacuum Rabi oscillations. Controlling these oscillatory dynamics quickly relative to the vacuum Rabi frequency enables remarkable capabilities such as Fock state generation and deterministic synthesis of quantum states of light, as demonstrated using microwave frequency devices. At optical frequencies, however, dynamical control of single-atom vacuum Rabi oscillations remains challenging. Here, we demonstrate coherent transfer of optical frequency excitation between a single quantum dot and a cavity by controlling vacuum Rabi o…
We show that it is possible to realize quantum superpositions of switched-on and -off strong light-matter interaction in a single quantum dot- semiconductor microcavity system. Such superpositions enable the observation of counterintuitive quantum conditional dynamics effects. Situations are possible where cavity photons as well as the emitter luminescence display exponential decay but their joint detection probability exhibits vacuum Rabi oscillations. Remarkably, these quantum correlations are also present in the nonequilibrium steady state spectra of such coherently driven dissipative quant…
When an atom is strongly coupled to a cavity, the two systems can exchange a single photon through a coherent Rabi oscillation. This process enables precise quantum-state engineering and manipulation of atoms and photons in a cavity, which play a central role in quantum information and measurement. Recently, a new regime of cavity QED has been reached experimentally where the strength of the interaction between light and artificial atoms (qubits) becomes comparable to the atomic transition frequency or the resonance frequency of the cavity mode. Here we show that this regime can strongly modif…
We study the coherent effect of the Casimir-Polder interaction on the oscillations of two-photon driven atoms. We find that, for oscillations between two degenerate states in lambda-configuration, shifts on the Rabi frequency may be induced by non-additive level shifts. For oscillations between two Rydberg states in ladder-configuration, shifts on the Rabi frequency may be induced by the effective renormalization of the laser interaction.
Controllable interaction between photons and distant spins via vacuum Rabi oscillations
QuTech and Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology（代尔夫特理工大学量子纳米科学卡弗里研究所）；Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO)（荷兰应用科学研究组织）
We use the vacuum Rabi splitting to perform quantum nondemolition (QND) measurements that prepare a conditionally spin-squeezed state of a collective atomic psuedo-spin. We infer a 3.4(6) dB improvement in quantum phase estimation relative to the standard quantum limit for a coherent spin state composed of uncorrelated atoms. The measured collective spin is composed of the two-level clock states of nearly 10^6 Rb-87 atoms confined inside a low finesse F = 710 optical cavity. This technique may improve atomic sensor precision and/or bandwidth, and may lead to more precise tests of fundamental p…
We show that the Casimir-Polder interaction may induce coherent oscillations between degenerate atomic states. We illustrate this effect by computing the Casimir-Polder induced Rabi frequency on a $^{87}$Rb atom as it interacts with a reflecting surface. The atom oscillates between two Zeeman sublevels of its ground state undergoing a periodic exchange of angular momentum with the vacuum photons.
We consider a laser composed of a single atom in a microcavity, with a coherent or incoherent pump. We consider both three- and four-level gain schemes, and examine the output spectrum of such lasers. We find that the linewidth generally scales as the inverse of the photon number. For large atom-field coupling, a vacuum-Rabi doublet structure is obtained. In the three-level case, this vacuum-Rabi splitting is apparent only for small intracavity photon numbers, and vanishes for large pumps. In the four-level scheme, the vacuum-Rabi structure appears at a nonzero pump level, and is maintained fo…
Helicity decoupling ultrastrong Rabi splitting from quantum vacuum dressing
College of Physical Sciences and Engineering, University Mohammed VI Polytechnic（物理科学与工程学院，穆罕默德六世polytechnic大学）；Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Tübingen（理论物理研究所，蒂宾根大学）；Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Forschungszentrum Jülich（于利希超级计算中心，于利希研究中心）；Department of Chemistry, Princeton University（化学系，普林斯顿大学）
The strong interaction of individual quantum emitters with resonant cavities is of fundamental interest for understanding light matter interactions. Plasmonic cavities hold the promise of attaining the strong coupling regime even under ambient conditions and within subdiffraction volumes. Recent experiments revealed strong coupling between individual plasmonic structures and multiple organic molecules, but so far strong coupling at the limit of a single quantum emitter has not been reported. Here we demonstrate vacuum Rabi splitting, a manifestation of strong coupling, using silver bowtie plas…
We study the dynamical Casimir effect using a fully quantum-mechanical description of both the cavity field and the oscillating mirror. We do not linearize the dynamics, nor do we adopt any parametric or perturbative approximation. By numerically diagonalizing the full optomechanical Hamiltonian, we show that the resonant generation of photons from the vacuum is determined by a ladder of mirror-field {\em vacuum Rabi splittings}. We find that vacuum emission can originate from the free evolution of an initial pure mechanical excited state, in analogy with the spontaneous emission from excited …
We consider a two-photon Rabi model with one of the cavity mirrors connected by a mechanical oscillator in strong-coupling regime. We find that when the cavity is in its vacuum state, there exists a resonant coupling between the atom and mechanical oscillator even if the quality factor of the cavity is ultra low. The coupling is coherent and can be achieved by the exchange of virtual photon pairs induced by dynamical Casimir effect. Moreover, when considering the one-photon Rabi model, we find that the atom can absorb one photon from a virtual photon pair, leaving the other converting to a rea…
A single quantum emitter can possess a very strong intrinsic nonlinearity, but its overall promise for nonlinear effects is hampered by the challenge of efficient coupling to incident photons. Common nonlinear optical materials, on the other hand, are easy to couple to but are bulky, imposing a severe limitation on the miniaturization of photonic systems. In this work, we show that a single organic molecule acts as an extremely efficient nonlinear optical element in the strong coupling regime of cavity quantum electrodynamics. We report on single-photon sensitivity in nonlinear signal generati…
Artificial atoms coupled to surface acoustic waves (SAWs) have played a crucial role in the recent development of circuit quantum acoustodynamics (cQAD). In this paper, we have investigated the interaction of an artificial atom and SAWs beyond the weak coupling regime, focusing on the role of the interdigital transducer (IDT) that enables the coupling. We find a parameter regime in which the IDT acts as a cavity for the atom, rather than an antenna. In other words, the atom forms its own cavity. Similar to an atom coupled to an explicit cavity, this regime is characterized by vacuum-Rabi split…
The coupling of a two-level system with an electromagnetic field, whose fully quantized version is the quantum Rabi model, is among the central topics of quantum physics. When the coupling strength becomes large enough that the field mode frequency is reached, the deep strong coupling regime is approached, and excitations can be created from the vacuum. Here we demonstrate a periodic variant of the quantum Rabi model in which the two-level system is encoded in the Bloch band structure of cold rubidium atoms in optical potentials. With this method we achieve a Rabi coupling strength of 6.5 time…
We study theoretically the nonstationary circuit QED system in which the artificial atom transition frequency, or the atom-cavity coupling, have a small periodic time modulation, prescribed externally. The system formed by the atom coupled to a single cavity mode is described by the Rabi Hamiltonian. We show that, in the dispersive regime, when the modulation periodicity is tuned to the `resonances', the system dynamics presents the dynamical Casimir effect, resonant Jaynes-Cummings or resonant Anti-Jaynes-Cummings behaviors, and it can be described by the corresponding effective Hamiltonians.…
We consider a generalized version of the Rabi model that includes a nonlinear, dispersive-type atom-field interaction in addition to the usual linear dipole coupling, as well as cavity dissipation. An effective system of this sort arises, for example, in a quantum simulation of the Rabi model based upon Raman transitions in an optical cavity QED setting [A. L. Grimsmo and S. Parkins, Phys. Rev. A {\bf87}, 033814 (2013)]. For a suitable choice of the nonlinear interaction strength, near degeneracies of the states in the cavity-mode vacuum and single-photon subspaces, in combination with cavity …
Quantum Rabi model (QRM) is widely used for the analysis of the radiation-matter interaction at the fundamental level in cavity quantum electrodynamics. Typically the QRM Hamiltonian includes only $\boldsymbol{\mathsf{p}} \cdot \boldsymbol{\mathsf{A}}$ term, however, the complete nonrelativistic Hamiltonian of quantum electrodynamics includes $\boldsymbol{\mathsf{A}}^{2}$ term as well. Here we find an exact solution and demonstrate with the help of the exact canonical transformations that the QRM Hamiltonian with the $\boldsymbol{\mathsf{A}}^{2}$ term (QRMA) is reduced to the standard QRM mode…
Dissipative generation of spin squeezing in the resolved vacuum Rabi splitting limit
JILA, University of Colorado and National Institute of Standards and Technology（科罗拉多大学与美国国家标准与技术研究院联合JILA研究所）；Department of Physics, University of Colorado（科罗拉多大学物理系）；Center for Theory of Quantum Matter, University of Colorado（科罗拉多大学量子物质理论中心）；T.C.M. Group, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge（剑桥大学卡文迪许实验室TCM小组）；Institute of Physics（物理研究所）
Vacuum induced coherence in a strongly coupled cavity consisting of a three-level system is studied theoretically. The effects of the strong coupling to electromagnetic field vacuum are examined by solution of an open-system quantum master equation. The numerical results show that the system exhibits population trapping, and the numerical results are interpreted with analytical expressions derived from a new basis in the weak excitation regime. We further show that the generated effects can be probed with weak external fields. Moreover, it is shown that the induced coherence can be controlled …
We propose a scheme for the ultrafast control of the emitter-field coupling rate in cavity quantum electrodynamics. This is achieved by the control of the vacuum field seen by the emitter through a modulation of the optical modes in a coupled-cavity structure. The scheme allows the on/off switching of the coupling rate without perturbing the emitter and without introducing frequency chirps on the emitted photons. It can be used to control the shape of single-photon pulses for high-fidelity quantum state transfer, to control Rabi oscillations and as a gain-modulation method in lasers. We discus…
In circuit quantum electrodynamics (circuit QED), an artificial "circuit atom" can couple to a quantized microwave radiation much stronger than its real atomic counterpart. The celebrated quantum Rabi model describes the simplest interaction of a two-level system with a single-mode boson field. When the coupling is large enough, the bare multilevel structure of a realistic circuit atom cannot be ignored even if the circuit is strongly anharmonic. We explored this situation theoretically for flux (fluxonium) and charge (Cooper pair box) type multi-level circuits tuned to their respective flux/c…
We study theoretically the non-stationary circuit QED system in which the artificial atom transition frequency has a small periodic modulation in time, prescribed externally. We show that, in the dispersive regime, when the modulation periodicity meets the `resonances', the dynamics may be described by the dynamical Casimir effect, Jaynes-Cummings or Anti-Jaynes-Cummings effective Hamiltonians. In the resonant atom-cavity regime, under the modulation `resonance' the dynamics resembles the behavior of the dynamical Casimir effect in a vibrating cavity containing a resonant two-level atom, and e…
We present a theory of the quantum vacuum radiation that is generated by a fast modulation of the vacuum Rabi frequency of a single two-level system strongly coupled to a single cavity mode. The dissipative dynamics of the Jaynes-Cummings model in the presence of anti-rotating wave terms is described by a generalized master equation including non-Markovian terms. Peculiar spectral properties and significant extracavity quantum vacuum radiation output are predicted for state-of-the-art circuit cavity quantum electrodynamics systems with superconducting qubits.
We observe strong collective coupling between an optical cavity and the forbidden spin singlet to triplet optical transition $^1$S$_0$ to $^3$P$_1$ in an ensemble of $^{88}$Sr. Despite the transition being 1000 times weaker than a typical dipole transition, we observe a well resolved vacuum Rabi splitting. We use the observed vacuum Rabi splitting to make non-destructive measurements of atomic population with the equivalent of projection-noise limited sensitivity and minimal heating ($<0.01$ photon recoils/atom). This technique may be used to enhance the performance of optical lattice clocks b…
We consider a semiconductor quantum well in a microcavity driven by coherent light and coupled to a squeezed vacuum reservoir. By systematically solving the pertinent quantum Langevin equations in the strong coupling and low excitation regimes, we study the effect of exciton-photon detuning, external coherent light, and the squeezed vacuum reservoir on vacuum Rabi splitting and on quantum statistical properties of the light emitted by the quantum well. We show that the exciton-photon detuning leads to a shift in polariton resonance frequencies and a decrease in fluorescence intensity. We also …
We present an analytical approach to the problem of the multiphoton absorption and Rabi oscillations in an armchair graphene nanoribbon (AGNR) in the presence of a time-oscillating strong electric field induced by a light wave directed parallel to the ribbon axis. The two-dimensional Dirac equation for the massless electron subject to the ribbon confinement is employed. In the resonant approximation the electron-hole pair production rate, associated with the electron transitions between the valence and conduction size-quantized subbands, the corresponding multiphoton absorption coefficient and…
We present a microscopic mo del of cavity quantum electro dynamics based on a one-dimensional coupled cavity array (1D CCA), where a sup er cavity (SC) is comp osed by a segment of the 1D CCA with relatively smaller couplings with the outsides. The single-photon scattering problem for the SC empty or with a two-level atom is investigated. We obtain the exact theoretical result on the transmission rate for our system, which predicts the transmission p eaks shall app ear near the eigen-energies. Our numerical results further prove that the SC is a well-defined multi-mo de cavity. When a two-leve…
Based on macroscopic quantum electrodynamics in linear media, we develop a general theory of the resonant Casimir-Polder force on an excited two-level atom in the presence of arbitrary linear bodies, with special emphasis on the strong-coupling regime where reabsorption of an emitted photon can give rise to (vacuum) Rabi oscillations. We first derive a simple time-independent expression for the force by using a dressed-state approximation. For initially single-quantum excited atom-field systems we then study the dynamics of the force by starting from the Lorentz force and evaluating its averag…
We study the probe spectrum of light generated by spontaneous emission into the mode of a cavity QED system. The probe spectrum has a maximum on-resonance when the number of inverted atoms for an input drive is maximal. For a larger number of atoms N, the maximum splits and develops into a doublet, but its frequencies are different from those of the so-called vacuum Rabi splitting.
The dynamics of a coupled system comprised of a two-level atom and cavity field assisted by continuous external classical field (driving Jaynes-Cummings model) is studied. When the initial field is prepared in a coherent state, the dynamics strongly depends on the algebraic sum of both fields. If this sum is zero (the compensative case) in the system only the vacuum Rabi oscillations occur. The results with the dissipation and external field detuning from the cavity field are also discussed.
One of the promising systems to realize quantum computation is a hybrid system where a superconducting flux qubit plays a role of a quantum processor and the NV center ensemble is used as a quantum memory. We have theoretically and experimentally studied the effect of magnetic fields on this hybrid system, and found that the lifetime of the vacuum Rabi oscillation is improved by applying a few mT magnetic field to the NV center ensemble. Here, we construct a theoretical model to reproduce the vacuum Rabi oscillations with/without magnetic fields applied to the NV centers, and we determine the …
We investigate theoretically the quantum vacuum properties of a chain of $N$ superconducting Josephson atoms inductively coupled to a transmission line resonator. We derive the quantum field Hamiltonian for such circuit-QED system, showing that, due to the type and strength of the interaction, a quantum phase transition can occur with a twice degenerate quantum vacuum above a critical coupling. In the finite-size case, the degeneracy is lifted, with an energy splitting decreasing exponentially with increasing values of $g^2 N^2$, where $g$ is the dimensionless vacuum Rabi coupling per artifici…
