Long-lived fluxon excitations can be trapped inside a superinductor ring, which is divided into an array of loops by a periodic sequence of Josephson junctions in the quantum regime, thereby allowing fluxons to tunnel between neighboring sites. By tuning the Josephson couplings and, implicitly, the fluxon tunneling probability amplitudes, a wide class of one-dimensional tight-binding lattice models may be implemented and populated with a stable number of fluxons. We illustrate the use of this quantum simulation platform by discussing the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model in the one-fluxon subspace, which hosts a symmetry-protected topological phase with fractionally charged bound states at the edges. This pair of localized edge states could be used to implement a superconducting qubit increasingly decoupled from decoherence mechanisms.

We investigate the dynamics of a microwave-driven Josephson junction capacitively coupled to a lumped element LC oscillator. In the regime of driving where the Josephson junction can be approximated as a Kerr oscillator, this minimal nonlinear system has been previously shown to exhibit a bistability in phase and amplitude. In the present study, we characterize the full phase diagram and show that besides a parameter regime exhibiting bistability, there is also a regime of self-oscillations characterized by a frequency comb in its spectrum. We discuss the mechanism of comb generation which appears to be different from those studied in microcavity frequency combs and mode-locked lasers. We then address the fate of the comb-like spectrum in the regime of strong quantum fluctuations, reached when nonlinearity becomes the dominant scale with respect to dissipation. We find that the nonlinearity responsible for the emergence of the frequency combs also leads to its dephasing, leading to broadening and ultimate disappearance of sharp spectral peaks. Our study explores the fundamental question of the impact of quantum fluctuations for quantum systems which do not possess a stable fixed point in the classical limit.

As superconductor quantum technologies are moving towards large-scale integrated circuits, a robust and flexible approach to routing photons at the quantum level becomes a critical problem. Active circuits, which contain parametrically driven elements selectively embedded in the circuit, offer a viable solution. Here, we present a general strategy for routing nonreciprocally quantum signals between two sites of a given lattice of oscillators, implementable with existing superconducting circuit components. Our approach makes use of a dual lattice of overdamped oscillators linking the nodes of the main lattice. Solutions for spatially selective driving of the lattice elements can be found, which optimally balance coherent and dissipative hopping of microwave photons to nonreciprocally route signals between two given nodes. In certain lattices these optimal solutions are obtained at the exceptional point of the dynamical matrix of the network. We also demonstrate that signal and noise transmission characteristics can be separately optimized.

The process of photosynthesis, the main source of energy in the living world, converts sunlight into chemical energy. The high efficiency of this process is believed to be enabled by an interplay between the quantum nature of molecular structures in photosynthetic complexes and their interaction with the environment. Investigating these effects in biological samples is challenging due to their complex and disordered structure. Here we experimentally demonstrate a technique for studying photosynthetic models based on superconducting quantum circuits, which complements existing experimental, theoretical, and computational approaches. We demonstrate a high degree of freedom in design and experimental control of our approach based on a simplified three-site model of a pigment protein complex with realistic parameters scaled down in energy by a factor of 105. We show that the excitation transport between quantum-coherent sites disordered in energy can be enabled through the interaction with environmental noise. We also show that the efficiency of the process is maximized for structured noise resembling intramolecular phononic environments found in photosynthetic complexes.

We report multistate optical switching among high-order bouncing-ball modes (“ripples”) and whispering-gallery modes (“petals”) of exciton-polariton condensates in a laser-generated annular trap. By tailoring the diameter and power of the annular trap, the polariton condensate can be switched among different trapped modes, accompanied by redistribution of spatial densities and superlinear increase in the emission intensities, implying that polariton condensates in this geometry could be exploited for an all-optical multistate switch. A model based on non-Hermitian modes of the generalized Gross-Pitaevskii equation reveals that this mode switching arises from competition between pump-induced gain and in-plane polariton loss. The parameters for reproducible switching among trapped modes have been measured experimentally, giving us a phase diagram for mode switching. Taken together, the experimental result and theoretical modeling advance our fundamental understanding of the spontaneous emergence of coherence and move us toward its practical exploitation.

We study the nonequilibrium steady-state of interacting photons in cavity arrays as described by the driven-dissipative Bose–Hubbard and spin-1/2 XY model. For this purpose, we develop a self-consistent expansion in the inverse coordination number of the array to solve the Lindblad master equation of these systems beyond the mean-field approximation. Our formalism is compared and benchmarked with exact numerical methods for small systems based on an exact diagonalization of the Liouvillian and a recently developed corner-space renormalization technique. We then apply this method to obtain insights beyond mean-field in two particular settings: (i) we show that the gas–liquid transition in the driven-dissipative Bose–Hubbard model is characterized by large density fluctuations and bunched photon statistics. (ii) We study the antibunching–bunching transition of the nearest-neighbor correlator in the driven-dissipative spin-1/2 XY model and provide a simple explanation of this phenomenon.

We present a theoretical study of synchronisation dynamics of incoherently pumped exciton–polariton condensates in coupled polariton traps. Our analysis is based on a coupled-mode theory for the generalised Gross–Pitaevskii equation, which employs an expansion in non-Hermitian, pump-dependent modes appropriate for the pumped geometry. We find that polariton–polariton and reservoir-polariton interactions play competing roles and lead to qualitatively different synchronised phases of the coupled polariton modes as pumping power is increased. Crucially, these interactions can also act against each other to hinder synchronisation. We map out a phase diagram and discuss the general characteristics of these phases using a generalised Adler equation.

We study the nonequilibrium steady state of the driven-dissipative Bose-Hubbard model with Kerr nonlinearity. Employing a mean-field decoupling for the intercavity hopping J, we find that the steep crossover between low and high photon-density states inherited from the single cavity transforms into a gas–liquid bistability at large cavity-coupling J. We formulate a van der Waals–like gas–liquid phenomenology for this nonequilibrium setting and determine the relevant phase diagrams, including a new type of diagram where a lobe-shaped boundary separates smooth crossovers from sharp, hysteretic transitions. Calculating quantum trajectories for a one-dimensional system, we provide insights into the microscopic origin of the bistability.

Any quantum-confined electronic system coupled to the electromagnetic continuum is subject to radiative decay and renormalization of its energy levels. When coupled to a cavity, these quantities can be strongly modified with respect to their values in vacuum. Generally, this modification can be accurately captured by including only the closest resonant mode of the cavity. In the circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture, it is, however, found that the radiative decay rates are strongly influenced by far off-resonant modes. A multimode calculation accounting for the infinite set of cavity modes leads to divergences unless a cutoff is imposed. It has so far not been identified what the source of divergence is. We show here that unless gauge invariance is respected, any attempt at the calculation of circuit QED quantities is bound to diverge. We then present a theoretical approach to the calculation of a finite spontaneous emission rate and the Lamb shift that is free of cutoff.

We study the dynamics of a transmon qubit that is capacitively coupled to an open multimode superconducting resonator. Our effective equations are derived by eliminating resonator degrees of freedom while encoding their effect in the Green's function of the electromagnetic background. We account for the dissipation of the resonator exactly by employing a spectral representation for the Green's function in terms of a set of non-Hermitian modes and show that it is possible to derive effective Heisenberg-Langevin equations without resorting to the rotating-wave, two-level, Born, or Markov approximations. A well-behaved time-domain perturbation theory is derived to systematically account for the nonlinearity of the transmon. We apply this method to the problem of spontaneous emission, capturing accurately the non-Markovian features of the qubit dynamics, valid for any qubit-resonator coupling strength.

The generalized Gross-Pitaevskii equation (gGPE) is an effective phenomenological description for the dynamics of incoherently pumped exciton-polariton condensates. However, a brute force numerical simulation of the gGPE provides little physical insight into condensate formation under arbitrary pumping configurations, and is demanding in terms of computational resources. We introduce in this paper a modal description of polariton condensation under incoherent pumping of arbitrary spatial profile, based on eigenmodes of the non-Hermitian generator of the linearized dynamics. A pump-dependent basis is then introduced to formulate a temporal coupled-mode theory that captures condensate dynamics in the presence of all nonlinear interactions. Simulations using a single set of modes for a given pumping and trapping configuration agree very well with a full integration of the gGPE in diverse dynamical regimes, supporting the validity of this modal description, while also providing a speedup in simulation times.

Bath engineering, which utilizes coupling to lossy modes in a quantum system to generate nontrivial steady states, is a tantalizing alternative to gate- and measurement-based quantum science. Here, we demonstrate dissipative stabilization of entanglement between two superconducting transmon qubits in a symmetry-selective manner. We utilize the engineered symmetries of the dissipative environment to stabilize a target Bell state; we further demonstrate suppression of the Bell state of opposite symmetry due to parity selection rules. This implementation is resource efficient, achieves a steady-state fidelity F=0.70, and is scalable to multiple qubits.

Pure dephasing processes limit the fidelities achievable in driven-dissipative schemes for stabilization of entangled states of qubits. We propose a scheme which, combined with already existing entangling methods, purifies the desired entangled state by driving out of equilibrium auxiliary dissipative cavity modes coupled to the qubits. We lay out the specifics of our scheme and compute its efficiency in the particular context of two superconducting qubits in a cavity-QED architecture, where the strongly coupled auxiliary modes provided by collective cavity excitations can drive and sustain the qubits in maximally entangled Bell states with fidelities reaching 90% for experimentally accessible parameters.

We explore the phase diagram of the dissipative Rabi-Hubbard model, as could be realized by a Raman-pumping scheme applied to a coupled cavity array. There exist various exotic attractors, including ferroelectric, antiferroelectric, and incommensurate fixed points, as well as regions of persistent oscillations. Many of these features can be understood analytically by truncating to the two lowest lying states of the Rabi model on each site. We also show that these features survive beyond mean field, using matrix product operator simulations.

We propose and study the use of photon-mediated interactions for the generation of long-range steady-state entanglement between N atoms. Through the judicious use of coherent drives and the placement of the atoms in a network of cavity QED systems, a balance between their unitary and dissipative dynamics can be precisely engineered to stabilize a long-range correlated state of qubits in the steady state. We discuss the general theory behind such a scheme and present an example of how it can be used to drive a register of N atoms to a generalized W state and how the entanglement can be sustained indefinitely. The achievable steady-state fidelities for entanglement and its scaling with the number of qubits are discussed for presently existing superconducting quantum circuits. While the protocol is primarily discussed for a superconducting circuit architecture, it is ideally realized in any cavity QED platform that permits controllable delivery of coherent electromagnetic radiation to specified locations.

We report on the engineering of a nondispersive (flat) energy band in a geometrically frustrated lattice of micropillar optical cavities. By taking advantage of the non-Hermitian nature of our system, we achieve bosonic condensation of exciton polaritons into the flat band. Because of the infinite effective mass in such a band, the condensate is highly sensitive to disorder and fragments into localized modes reflecting the elementary eigenstates produced by geometric frustration. This realization offers a novel approach to studying coherent phases of light and matter under the controlled interplay of frustration, interactions, and dissipation.

By placing an atom into a cavity, the electromagnetic mode structure of the cavity is modified. In cavity QED, one manifestation of this phenomenon is the appearance of a gauge-dependent diamagnetic term, known as the A 2 contribution. Although in atomic cavity QED, the resulting modification in the eigenmodes is negligible, in recent superconducting circuit realizations, such corrections can be observable and may have qualitative implications. We revisit the canonical quantization procedure of a circuit-QED system consisting of a single superconducting transmon qubit coupled to a multimode superconducting microwave resonator. A complete derivation of the quantum Hamiltonian of an open circuit-QED system consisting of a transmon qubit coupled to a leaky transmission line cavity is presented. We introduce a complete set of modes that properly conserves the current in the entire structure and present a sum rule for the dipole transition matrix elements of a multilevel transmon qubit coupled to a multimode cavity. Finally, an effective multimode Rabi model is derived with coefficients that are given in terms of circuit parameters.

We demonstrate that due to strong modal interactions through cross-gain saturation, the onset of a new lasing mode can switch off an existing mode via a negative power slope. In this process of interaction-induced mode switching (IMS) the two involved modes maintain their identities, i.e. they do not change their spatial field patterns or lasing frequencies. For a fixed pump profile, a simple analytic criterion for the occurrence of IMS is given in terms of their self- and cross-interaction coefficients and non-interacting thresholds, which is verified for the example of a two-dimensional microdisk laser. When the spatial pump profile is varied as the pump power is increased, IMS can be induced even when it would not occur with a fixed pump profile, as we show for two coupled laser cavities. Our findings apply to steady-state lasing and are hence different from dynamical mode switching or hopping. IMS may have potential applications in robust and flexible all-optical switching.

Studying time-dependent behavior in lasers is analytically difficult due to the saturating nonlinearity inherent in the Maxwell-Bloch equations and numerically demanding because of the computational resources needed to discretize both time and space in conventional finite-difference time-domain approaches. We describe here an efficient spectral method to overcome these shortcomings in complex lasers of arbitrary shape, gain medium distribution, and pumping profile. We apply this approach to a quasidegenerate two-mode laser in different dynamical regimes and compare the results in the long-time limit to the steady-state ab initio laser theory (SALT), which is also built on a spectral method but makes a more specific ansatz about the long-time dynamical evolution of the semiclassical laser equations. Analyzing a parameter regime outside the known domain of validity of the stationary inversion approximation, we find that for only a narrow regime of pump powers the inversion is not stationary, and that this, as pump power is further increased, triggers a synchronization transition upon which the inversion becomes stationary again. We provide a detailed analysis of mode synchronization (also known as cooperative frequency locking), revealing interesting dynamical features of such a laser system in the vicinity of the synchronization threshold.

In this report we study the Vernier effect in coupled laser systems consisting of two cavities. We show that depending on the nature of their coupling, not only can the “supermodes” formed at overlapping resonances of these two cavities have the lowest thresholds as previously found, leading to lasing at these overlapping resonances and a manifestation of the typical Vernier effect, but also they can have increased thresholds and are hence suppressed, which can be viewed as an inverse Vernier effect. The inverse Vernier effect can also lead to an increased free spectrum range and possibly single-mode lasing, which may explain the experimental findings in several previous studies. We illustrate this effect using two coupled micro-ring cavities and a micro-ring cavity coupled to a slab cavity, and we discuss its relation to the existence of exceptional points in coupled lasers.

Here, we report an experimental realization of multimode strong coupling in cavity quantum electrodynamics. This novel regime is achieved when a single artificial atom is simultaneously strongly coupled to a large, but discrete, number of nondegenerate photonic modes of a cavity with coupling strengths comparable to the free spectral range. Our experiment reveals complex quantum multimode dynamics and spontaneous generation of quantum coherence, as evidenced by resonance fluorescence spanning many modes and ultranarrow linewidth emission. This work opens a new avenue for future experiments in light-matter interactions and poses a challenge to current theoretical approaches to its study.

The quantum dynamics of open many-body systems poses a challenge for computational approaches. Here we develop a stochastic scheme based on the positive P phase-space representation to study the nonequilibrium dynamics of coupled spin-boson networks that are driven and dissipative. Such problems are at the forefront of experimental research in cavity and solid state realizations of quantum optics, as well as cold atom physics, trapped ions and superconducting circuits. We demonstrate and test our method on a driven, dissipative two-site system, each site involving a spin coupled to a photonic mode, with photons hopping between the sites, where we find good agreement with Monte Carlo Wavefunction simulations. In addition to numerically reproducing features recently observed in an experiment [Phys. Rev. X 4, 031043 (2014)], we also predict a novel steady state quantum dynamical phase transition for an asymmetric configuration of drive and dissipation.