Atom-modulated dynamic optical hysteresis in driven-dissipative systems

Abstract

We introduce a two-level atom into a cavity as an ancilla to control the hysteresis of the system where the cavity is described by a driven-dissipative nonlinear Kerr model. We find that the dynamic optical hysteresis can be modulated by changing the atom-cavity coupling strength, and the nonlinearity induced by atom-cavity coupling weakens the Kerr nonlinearity in the weak coupling regime. This leads to the change in the critical point corresponding to the decrease in the hysteresis area. The physics behind the modulation is closely related to the effect of the atom-cavity coupling on the discontinuity of the first nonzero Liouvillian eigenvalue. A relative deviation of the metastable state and target steady state is defined to characterize the relation between the hysteresis and adiabaticity of the system. Taking only two Liouvillian eigenvectors into account in the composite system, we derive an expression for the dependence of the hysteresis area on the sweeping speed and discuss its feature in the slow sweeping limit.