Generating Kerr nonlinearity with an engineered non-Markovian environment**Project supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2017YFA0304503) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11835011, 11574353, 11734018, and 11674360).

Abstract

Kerr nonlinearity is an important resource for creating squeezing and entanglement in quantum technology. Here we propose a scheme for generating Kerr nonlinearity originated from an engineered non-Markovian environment, which is different from the previous efforts using nonlinear media or quantum systems with special energy structures. In the present work, the generation of Kerr nonlinearity depends on the system–environment interaction time, the energy spectrum of the environment, and the system–environment coupling strength, regardless of the environmental initial state. The scheme can be realized in systems originally containing no Kerr interaction, such as superconducting circuit systems, optomechanical systems, and cavity arrays connected by transmission lines.