| Issue |
EPL
Volume 77, Number 3, February 2007
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 34001 | |
| Number of page(s) | 5 | |
| Section | Electromagnetism, Optics, Acoustics, Heat Transfer, Classical Mechanics, and Fluid Dynamics | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/77/34001 | |
| Published online | 05 February 2007 | |
Optical signatures of quantum phase transitions in a light-matter system
Centre for Quantum Computation and Department of Physics, Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford Oxford, OX1 3PU, UK
Received:
19
October
2006
Accepted:
29
November
2006
Information about quantum phase transitions in conventional condensed matter systems, must be sought by probing the matter system itself. By contrast, we show that mixed matter-light systems offer a distinct advantage in that the photon field carries clear signatures of the associated quantum critical phenomena. Having derived an accurate, size-consistent Hamiltonian for the photonic field in the well-known Dicke model, we predict striking behavior of the optical squeezing and photon statistics near the phase transition. The corresponding dynamics resemble those of a degenerate parametric amplifier. Possible realizations include atom-cavity, nanostructure-cavity, and nanostructure-photonic-band-gap systems.
PACS: 42.50.Fx – Cooperative phenomena in quantum optical systems / 73.43.Nq – Quantum phase transitions / 32.80.-t – Photon interactions with atoms
© Europhysics Letters Association, 2007
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.