QED Systems Research Articles

Multiphoton quantum Rabi oscillations in ultrastrong cavity QED

When an atom is strongly coupled to a cavity, the two systems can exchange a single photon through a coherent Rabi oscillation. This process enables precise quantum-state engineering and manipulation of atoms and photons in a cavity, which play a central role in quantum information and measurement. Recently, a new regime of cavity QED has been reached experimentally where the strength of the interaction between light and artificial atoms (qubits) becomes comparable to the atomic transition frequency or the resonance frequency of the cavity mode. Here we show that this regime can strongly modify the concept of vacuum Rabi oscillations, enabling multiphoton exchanges between the qubit and the resonator. We find that experimental state-of-the-art circuit- QED systems can undergo two- and three-photon vacuum Rabi oscillations. These anomalous Rabi oscillations can be exploited for the realization of efficient Fock-state sources of light and complex entangled states of qubits.

QED spectra in the path integral formalism

Relativistic Hamiltonians, derived from the path integrals, are known to provide a simple and useful formalism for hadron spectroscopy in QCD. The accuracy of this approach is tested using the QED systems, and the calculated spectrum is shown to reproduce exactly that of the Dirac hydrogen atom, while the Breit-Fermi nonrelativistic expansion is obtained using Foldy-Wouthuizen transformation. The calculated positronium spectrum, including spin-dependent terms, coincides with the standard QED perturbation theory to the considered order $O({\ensuremath{\alpha}}^{4})$.

Scheme for on-resonance generation of entanglement in time-dependent asymmetric two-qubit-cavity systems

We present an efficient scheme for the controlled generation of pure two-qubit states possessing any desired degree of entanglement and a prescribed symmetry. This is achieved in two-qubit-cavity QED systems (e.g., cold-trapped ions and flying atoms) via on-resonance ion- or atom-cavity couplings, which are time dependent and asymmetric, yielding a trapping vacuum state condition which does not arise for identical couplings. A duality in the role of the coupling ratio yields states with a given concurrence but opposing symmetries. Both the trapping state condition and the resulting entanglement power are robust against decoherence channels.