Universal critical behavior in the Dicke model

Abstract

The critical value of the atom-field coupling strength for a finite number of atoms is determined by means of both semiclassical and exact solutions. In the semiclassical approach we use a variational procedure with coherent and symmetry-adapted states, while for the exact quantum solution the concept of fidelity is employed. These procedures allow for the determination of the phase transitions in the model and coincide in the thermodynamic limit. For the three cases mentioned above, universal parametric curves are obtained for the expectation values of both the first quadrature of the electromagnetic field and the atomic relative population as implicit functions of the atom-field coupling parameter, valid for the ground and first-excited states.