Experimental quantum simulation of superradiant phase transition beyond no-go theorem via antisqueezing

Xi Chen,Ze Wu,Xinhua Peng,Min Jiang,Xin-You Lü,Jiangfeng Du

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-26573-5

Abstract

The superradiant phase transition in thermal equilibrium is a fundamental concept bridging statistical physics and electrodynamics, which has never been observed in real physical systems since the first proposal in the 1970s. The existence of this phase transition in cavity quantum electrodynamics systems is still subject of ongoing debates due to the no-go theorem induced by the so-called A2 term. Moreover, experimental conditions to study this phase transition are hard to achieve with current accessible technology. Based on the platform of nuclear magnetic resonance, here we experimentally simulate the occurrence of an equilibrium superradiant phase transition beyond no-go theorem by introducing the antisqueezing effect. The mechanism relies on that the antisqueezing effect recovers the singularity of the ground state via exponentially enhancing the zero point fluctuation of system. The strongly entangled and squeezed Schrödinger cat states of spins are achieved experimentally in the superradiant phase, which may play an important role in fundamental tests of quantum theory and implementations of quantum metrology.

Highlights

The superradiant phase transition in thermal equilibrium is a fundamental concept bridging statistical physics and electrodynamics, which has never been observed in real physical systems since the first proposal in the 1970s
This superradiant phase transitions (SPT) will disappear when the A2 term H^ A 1⁄4 ðαλ2=ΩÞð^a þ ^ayÞ2 (α ≥ 1 decided by the Thomas-Reiche-Kuhn sum rule) is included in the actual cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) systems (i.e., H^ QED 1⁄4 H^ R þ H^ A), corresponding to the regime II of Fig. 1b
From a physical point of view, we have presented a first proof-of-principle experiment to demonstrate equilibrium SPT beyond no-go theorem induced by the antisqueezing effect

Summary

Introduction

The superradiant phase transition in thermal equilibrium is a fundamental concept bridging statistical physics and electrodynamics, which has never been observed in real physical systems since the first proposal in the 1970s. In the normal phase, the ground state of the cavity field is not occupied, while in the superradiant phase the ground state is macroscopically occupied and becomes twofold degenerate, corresponding to a spontaneously Z2 symmetry breaking This leads to the appearance of important quantum effects in the supper-radiant phase, including spin-field entanglement, distinguishable quantum superposition with large-amplitude, and so on[7,8]. The required critical parameter regime and ultralow-temperature ground state preparation for implementing equilibrium SPT are normally hard to be satisfied with current technologies of cavity QED. For describing the dipole atom-field interactions in the cavity

Methods

Results

Conclusion