Exploring chaos in the Dicke model using ground-state fidelity and Loschmidt echo.

Abstract

We study the quantum critical behavior of the Dicke Hamiltonian with finite number of atoms and explore the signature of quantum chaos using measures like the ground-state fidelity and the Loschmidt echo and the time-averaged Loschmidt echo. We show that these quantities clearly point to the classically chaotic nature of the system in the superradiant (SR) phase. While the ground-state fidelity shows aperiodic oscillations as a function of the coupling strength, the echo shows aperiodic oscillations in time and decays rapidly when the system is in the SR phase. We clearly demonstrate how the time-averaged value of the echo already incorporates the information about the ground-state fidelity and stays much less than unity, indicating the classically chaotic nature of the model in the SR phase.