Observation of a Dissipative Phase Transition in a One-Dimensional Circuit QED Lattice
Observation of a Dissipative Phase Transition in a One-Dimensional Circuit QED Lattice
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DOI：
10.1103/physrevx.7.011016
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发表时间：
2017-02-10
影响因子：
12.5
通讯作者：
Houck, Andrew A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Fitzpatrick, Mattias;Sundaresan, Neereja M.;Houck, Andrew A.
凝聚态物理在研究和理解基于对称性和拓扑学的平衡相变方面取得了重大的实验和理论进展，推动了凝聚态物理的发展。然而，非平衡相变仍然是一个挑战，部分原因是它们在理论描述上的复杂性，以及系统地控制系统脱离平衡的额外实验困难。在这里，我们研究了一个由72个微波腔组成的一维链，每个腔耦合到一个超导量子比特，并相干地驱动系统进入非平衡稳态。我们发现了系统中存在耗散相变的实验证据，在该相变中，稳态随着平均光子数的增加而急剧变化。在两个观察到的相位之间的边界附近，该系统表现出双稳态，其特征开关时间长达60ms-远远长于该系统已知的任何本征速率。本实验展示了电路QED系统研究非平衡凝聚态物理的能力，为今后用多体量子光学探索非平衡物理奠定了基础。
Condensed matter physics has been driven forward by significant experimental and theoretical progress in the study and understanding of equilibrium phase transitions based on symmetry and topology. However, nonequilibrium phase transitions have remained a challenge, in part due to their complexity in theoretical descriptions and the additional experimental difficulties in systematically controlling systems out of equilibrium. Here, we study a one-dimensional chain of 72 microwave cavities, each coupled to a superconducting qubit, and coherently drive the system into a nonequilibrium steady state. We find experimental evidence for a dissipative phase transition in the system in which the steady state changes dramatically as the mean photon number is increased. Near the boundary between the two observed phases, the system demonstrates bistability, with characteristic switching times as long as 60 ms-far longer than any of the intrinsic rates known for the system. This experiment demonstrates the power of circuit QED systems for studying nonequilibrium condensed matter physics and paves the way for future experiments exploring nonequilbrium physics with many-body quantum optics.