Simulating accelerated atoms coupled to a quantum field

We show an analogy between static quantum emitters coupled to a single mode of a quantum field and accelerated Unruh-DeWitt detectors. We envision a way to simulate a variety of relativistic quantum field settings beyond the reach of current computational power, such as a high number of qubits coupled to a quantum field following arbitrary noninertial trajectories. Our scheme may be implemented with trapped ions and circuit QED setups.

Figure 1

Time evolution of ${\mathcal{P}}_{A_g}$ for different accelerations, with the parameter values $g=0.01\Omega$ and ${\omega }_0=1.33\Omega$. The crossing time and the transition probability fit the Landau-Zener prediction described in (12).

Figure 2

Comparison between the Landau-Zener theoretical prediction (red dashed line) and the probability for an accelerated detector of remaining in the excited state as a function of the acceleration $a=f_{\alpha }c\Omega$ (blue solid line), with parameter values $g=0.01\Omega$ and ${\omega }_0=1.33\Omega$.