Nonlinear coupled-mode framework for coupled systems: From exact Hamiltonian models to improved reduced-order formulations.

We study the steady-state entanglement and heat current of two coupled qubits, in which two qubits are connected with two independent heat baths (IHBs) or two common heat baths (CHBs). We construct the master equation in the eigenstate representation of two coupled qubits to describe the dynamics of the total system and derive the solutions in the steady-state with stronger coupling regime between two qubits than qubit–baths. We do not make the rotating wave approximation (RWA) for the qubit–qubit interaction, and so we are able to investigate the behaviors of the system in both the strong coupling regime and the weak coupling regime, respectively. In an equilibrium bath, we find that the entanglement decreases with the bath temperature and energy detuning increasing under the strong coupling regime. In the weak coupling regime, the entanglement increases with coupling strength increasing and decreases with the bath temperature and energy detuning increasing. In a nonequilibrium bath, the entanglement without RWA is useful for entanglement at lower temperatures. We also study the heat currents of the two coupled qubits and their variations with the energy detuning, coupling strength and low temperature. In the strong (weak) coupling regime, the heat current increases (decreases) with coupling strength increasing when the temperature of one bath is lower (higher) than the other, and the energy detuning leads to a positive (negative) effect when the temperature is low (high). In the weak coupling regime, the variation trend of heat current is opposite to that of coupling strength for the IHB case and the CHB case.

Short laser pulse amplification via stimulated Brillouin backscattering in plasma is considered. Previous work distinguishes between the weakly and strongly coupled regime and treats them separately. It is shown here that such a separation is not generally applicable because strong and weak coupling interaction regimes are entwined with each other. An initially weakly coupled amplification scenario may dynamically transform into strong coupling. This happens when the local seed amplitude grows and thus triggers the strongly driven plasma response. On the other hand, when in a strong coupling scenario, the pump pulse gets depleted, and its amplitude might drop below the strong coupling threshold. This may cause significant changes in the final seed pulse shape. Furthermore, experimentally used pump pulses are typically Gaussian-shaped. The intensity threshold for strong coupling may only be exceeded around the maximum and not in the wings of the pulse. Also here, a description valid in both strong and weak coupling regimes is required. We propose such a unified treatment which allows us, in particular, to study the dynamic transition between weak and strong coupling. Consequences for the pulse forms of the amplified seed are discussed.

We theoretically investigate the coupling between a single Ag nanoparticle and chiral molecular J-aggregates (TDBC). The element of the structure is composed of a Ag nanoparticle entirely surrounded by chiral TDBC. The results show that the coupling between the Ag nanoparticle and TDBC can be tuned by the size of the Ag nanoparticle. By changing the size of the Ag nanoparticle, both the strong coupling effect and the weak coupling effect between the Ag nanoparticle and TDBC are achieved. Circular dichroism (CD) spectra of the hybridized structures in both the strong and the weak coupling regimes present a Fano line-shape, which can be represented in the form of . We also find that the CD spectrum in the strong coupling regime is less than that in the weak coupling regime. The maximum of the CD spectrum of the hybridized structure in the scattering spectrum is amplified 130 times compared to that of chiral TDBC in the strong coupling regime, and 490 times compared to that in the weak coupling regime, respectively. Much more energy is used to change the resonant wavelength of the hybridized structure in the strong coupling regime. The radiative efficiency of the system is suppressed. In the weak coupling regime, the energy is mainly used to enhance the CD spectrum. Our research has great potential for molecule detection.

The dynamics of single-excitation energy transfer in a molecular dimer interacting with a phonon bath is studied. Although there are exact numerical solutions for this system, we propose an approach that provides exact analytical results with few electronic degrees of freedom. This approach is based on considering the phonon subsystem in the coherent state representation. Applying this approach, the long-lived coherence time is evaluated in the weak and strong coupling regimes. Moreover, by calculating the quantum entanglement and global quantum discord, the time evolution of quantum correlations is examined. The effects of two parameters, electronic coupling strength and bath temperature, on the energy transfer and quantum correlations are studied. It is shown, in agreement with previous results, that the long-lived coherence time in the weak coupling regime is longer than in the strong coupling regime. Also, the increasing bath temperature gives rise to faster delocalization of energy transfer. Furthermore, it is illustrated that the bath temperature has a significant effect on the quantum entanglement with respect to the global quantum discord.

The dynamics of geometric discord (GD) and its transfer in a dissipative system consisting of two independent atom-cavity-reservoir subsystems under the strong coupling and the weak coupling regimes is studied. It is shown that the GD of the atoms and the cavities oscillatorily decays to zero while the reservoirs begin to present nonzero geometric quantum discord already immediately after t = 0 in the strong coupling regime. However, in the weak coupling regime, the GD between the atoms progressively decays becoming zero and the discord between the reservoirs arises from zero to a steady value, while the cavities remain almost uncorrelated during the evolution. We also show that the amount of GD contained in atoms and reservoirs depends on the purity p and it is proportional to p, the smaller the value of p the smaller the amount of GD. It is worth noting that, in both strong coupling and the weak coupling regimes, the results show that GD initially stored in the atoms will eventually be completely transferred to the reservoirs, independent of the parameters, but the transfer is mediated via the cavities in the strong coupling regime, while it is almost directly in the weak coupling regime.

We report the design, fabrication and optical investigation of electrically tunable single quantum dots—photonic crystal defect nanocavities operating in both the weak and strong coupling regimes of the light–matter interaction. Unlike previous studies where the dot–cavity spectral detuning was varied by changing the lattice temperature, or by the adsorption of inert gases at low temperatures, we demonstrate that the quantum-confined Stark effect can be employed to quickly and reversibly switch the dot–cavity coupling simply by varying a gate voltage. Our results show that exciton transitions from individual dots can be tuned by ∼4 meV relative to the nanocavity mode before the emission quenches due to carrier tunneling escape. This range is much larger than the typical linewidth of the high-Q cavity modes (∼100 μeV) allowing us to explore and contrast regimes where the dots couple to the cavity or decay by spontaneous emission into the two-dimensional photonic bandgap. In the weak-coupling regime, we show that the dot spontaneous emission rate can be tuned using a gate voltage, with Purcell factors ⩾7. New information is obtained on the nature of the dot–cavity coupling in the weak coupling regime, and electrical control of zero-dimensional polaritons is demonstrated for the highest-Q cavities (Q⩾12 000). Vacuum Rabi splittings up to ∼120 μeV are observed, larger than the linewidths of either the decoupled exciton (γ⩽40 μeV) or cavity mode. These observations represent a voltage switchable optical nonlinearity at the single photon level, paving the way towards on-chip dot-based nano-photonic devices that can be integrated with passive optical components.

We present a quantum theory for the interaction of a two level emitter with\nsurface plasmon polaritons confined in single-mode waveguide resonators. Based\non the Green's function approach, we develop the conditions for the weak and\nstrong coupling regimes by taking into account the sources of dissipation and\ndecoherence: radiative and non-radiative decays, internal loss processes in the\nemitter, as well as propagation and leakage losses of the plasmons in the\nresonator. The theory is supported by numerical calculations for several\nquantum emitters, GaAs and CdSe quantum dots and NV centers together with\ndifferent types of resonators constructed of hybrid, cylindrical or wedge\nwaveguides. We further study the role of temperature and resonator length.\nAssuming realistic leakage rates, we find the existence of an optimal length at\nwhich strong coupling is possible. Our calculations show that the strong\ncoupling regime in plasmonic resonators is accessible within current technology\nwhen working at very low temperatures (<4K). In the weak coupling regime our\ntheory accounts for recent experimental results. By further optimization we\nfind highly enhanced spontaneous emission with Purcell factors over 1000 at\nroom temperature for NV-centers. We finally discuss more applications for\nquantum nonlinear optics and plasmon-plasmon interactions.\n

We perform a systematic analysis of the influence of phonon driving on the superconducting Holstein model coupled to heat baths by studying both the transient dynamics and the nonequilibrium steady state (NESS) in the weak and strong electron-phonon coupling regimes. Our study is based on the nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory, and for the NESS we present a Floquet formulation adapted to electron-phonon systems. The analysis of the phonon propagator suggests that the effective attractive interaction can be strongly enhanced in a parametric resonant regime because of the Floquet side bands of phonons. While this may be expected to enhance the superconductivity (SC), our fully self-consistent calculations, which include the effects of heating and nonthermal distributions, show that the parametric phonon driving generically results in a suppression or complete melting of the SC order. In the strong coupling regime, the NESS always shows a suppression of the SC gap, the SC order parameter and the superfluid density as a result of the driving, and this tendency is most prominent at the parametric resonance. Using the real-time nonequilibrium DMFT formalism, we also study the dynamics towards the NESS, which shows that the heating effect dominates the transient dynamics, and SC is weakened by the external modulations, in particular at the parametric resonance. In the weak coupling regime, we find that the SC fluctuations above the transition temperature are generally weakened under the driving. The strongest suppression occurs again around the parametric resonances because of the efficient energy absorption.

Using quantum discord (QD) and geometric quantum discord (GQD), quantum correlation dynamics is investigated for two coupled qubits within a multiqubit interacting system in the zero-temperature bosonic reservoir, under both weak and strong qubit-reservoir coupling regimes. The multiqubit system is connected with either a common bosonic reservoir (CBR) or multiple independent bosonic reservoirs (IBRs). In the CBR case, our findings indicate that both QD and GQD can be strengthened by increasing the number of qubits in the multiqubit system. Furthermore, we study the steady state QD and GQD in the strong coupling regime, and find that the stable value in the long-time limit is determined exclusively by the number of qubits. The evolution period of QD and GQD gets longer as the dipole–dipole interaction (DDI) strength increases, which helps prolong the correlation time and thus preserves the quantum correlation under the weak coupling regime. Further analysis reveals notable differences between the CBR and IBRs scenarios. In the IBRs case, the decay of QD and GQD becomes slower compared to the CBR case, with both measures tending to zero at a reduced rate. Moreover, GQD consistently exhibits lower values than QD in both scenarios. These findings provide valuable insights into the selection of appropriate correlation measurement techniques for quantifying quantum correlations.

Plasmonic coupling dependent sensitivity in localized surface plasmon resonance based optical sensors

The coherent light-matter interaction has drawn an enormous amount of attention for its fundamental importance in the cavity quantum-electrodynamics (C-QED) field and great potential in quantum information applications. Here, we design a hybrid C-QED system consisting of a quantum dot (QD) driven by two-tone fields implanted in a photonic crystal (PhC) cavity coupled to an auxiliary cavity with a single-mode waveguide and investigate the hybrid system operating in the weak, intermediate, and strong coupling regimes of the light-matter interaction via comparing the QD-photon interaction with the dipole decay rate and the cavity field decay rate. The results indicate that the auxiliary cavity plays a key role in the hybrid system, which affords a quantum channel to influence the absorption of the probe field. By controlling the coupling strength between the auxiliary cavity and the PhC cavity, the phenomenon of the Mollow triplet can appear in the intermediate coupling regime, and even in the weak coupling regime. We further study the strong coupling interaction manifested by vacuum Rabi splitting in the absorption with manipulating the cavity-cavity coupling under different parameter regimes. This study provides a promising platform for understanding the dynamics of QD-C-QED systems and paving the way toward on-chip QD-based nanophotonic devices.

The exact dynamics of a quantum damped harmonic oscillator coupled to a reservoir of boson modes has been formally described in terms of the coupling function, both in weak and strong coupling regime. In this scenario, we provide a further description of the exact dynamics through integral transforms. We focus on a special class of spectral densities, sub-ohmic at low frequencies, and including integrable divergencies referred to as photonic band gaps. The Drude form of the spectral densities is recovered as upper limit. Starting from special distributions of coherent states as external reservoir, the exact time evolution, described through Fox H-functions, shows long time inverse power law decays, departing from the exponential-like relaxations obtained for the Drude model. Different from the weak coupling regime, in the sub-ohmic condition, undamped oscillations plus inverse power law relaxations appear in the long time evolution of the observables position and momentum. Under the same condition, the number of excitations shows trapping of the population of the excited levels and oscillations enveloped in inverse power law relaxations. Similarly to the weak coupling regime, critical configurations give arbitrarily slow relaxations useful for the control of the dynamics. If compared to the value obtained in weak coupling condition, for strong couplings the critical frequency is enhanced by a factor 4.

Summary Molecular aggregates on plasmonic nanoparticles have emerged as attractive systems for the studies of polaritonic light-matter states, called plexcitons. Such systems are tunable, scalable, easy to synthesize, and offer sub-wavelength confinement, all while giving access to the ultrastrong light-matter coupling regime, promising a plethora of applications. However, the complexity of these materials prevented the understanding of their excitation and relaxation phenomena. Here, we follow the relaxation pathways in plexcitons and conclude that while the metal destroys the optical coherence, the molecular aggregate coupled to surface processes significantly contributes to the energy dissipation. We use two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy with theoretical modeling to assign the different relaxation processes to either molecules or metal nanoparticle. We show that the dynamics beyond a few femtoseconds has to be considered in the language of hot electron distributions instead of the accepted lower and upper polariton branches and establish the framework for further understanding.

We investigate the charging dynamics of a frequency-modulated quantum battery (QB) placed within a dissipative cavity environment. Our study focuses on the interaction of such a battery under both weak and strong coupling regimes, employing a model in which the quantum battery and charger are represented as frequency-modulated qubits indirectly coupled through a zero-temperature environment. It is demonstrated that both the modulation frequency and amplitude are crucial for optimizing the charging process and the ergotropy of the quantum battery. Specifically, high-amplitude, low-frequency modulation significantly enhances charging performance and work extraction in the strong coupling regime. As an intriguing result, it is deduced that modulation at very low frequencies leads to the emergence of energy storage and work extraction in the weak coupling regime. Such a result can never be achieved without modulation in the weak coupling regime. These results highlight the importance of adjusting modulation parameters to optimize the performance of quantum batteries for real-world applications in quantum technologies.

We investigate how collective behaviors of vibrations such as cooperativity and interference can enhance energy transfer in a nontrivial way, focusing on an example of a donor–bridge–acceptor trimeric chromophore system coupled to two vibrational degrees of freedom. Employing parameters selected to provide an overall uphill energy transfer from donor to acceptor, we use numerical calculations of dynamics in a coupled exciton–vibration basis, together with perturbation-based analytics and calculation of vibronic spectra, to identify clear spectral features of single- and multi-phonon vibrationally-assisted energy transfer (VAET) dynamics, where the latter include up to six-phonon contributions. We identify signatures of vibrational cooperation and interference that provide enhancement of energy transfer relative to that obtained from VAET with a single vibrational mode. We observe a phononic analogue of two-photon absorption, as well as a novel heteroexcitation mechanism in which a single phonon gives rise to simultaneous excitation of both the trimeric system and the vibrational degrees of freedom. The impacts of vibrations and of the one- and two-phonon VAET processes on the energy transfer are seen to be quite different in the weak and strong site–vibration coupling regimes. In the weak coupling regime, two-phonon processes dominate, whereas in the strong coupling regime up to six-phonon VAET processes can be induced. The VAET features are seen to be enhanced with increasing temperature and site–vibration coupling strength, and are reduced in the presence of dissipation. We analyze the dependence of these phenomena on the explicit form of the chromophore–vibration couplings, with comparison of VAET spectra for local and non-local couplings.