Quantum phase transitions in the anti-Jaynes-Cummings triangle model

Abstract

We carefully investigate the comprehensive impact of atom-cavity interaction and artificial magnetic fields on quantum phase transitions of anti-Jaynes-Cummings triangle model in the infinite frequency limit. We discover that ground states of the optical field can be a gapped normal phase (NP) or three kinds of gapless superradiant phases with infinite degeneracy. When the atom-cavity coupling is weak, the optical field is in a NP, which is a vacuum with no photons. Otherwise, it will stay at one of the superradiant phases: a normal superradiant phase without photon currents and another two chiral superradiant phases with opposite photon currents. The former only breaks the continuous U(1) symmetry and its gapless excitations are normal Goldstone modes. Nevertheless, the latter, mainly induced by an external synthetic gauge field, break both the continuous U(1) symmetry and chiral symmetry, thereby corresponding gapless excitations are chiral Goldstone modes. In addition, we also propose a detecting scheme to distinguish these superradiant phases.