Autonomous stabilizer for incompressible photon fluids and solids

Ruichao Ma, Clai Owens, Andrew Houck, David I. Schuster, and Jonathan Simon
Phys. Rev. A 95, 043811 – Published 10 April 2017

Abstract

We suggest a simple approach to populate photonic quantum materials at nonzero chemical potential and near-zero temperature. Taking inspiration from forced evaporation in cold-atom experiments, the essential ingredients for our low-entropy thermal reservoir are (a) interparticle interactions and (b) energy-dependent loss. The resulting thermal reservoir may then be coupled to a broad class of Hamiltonian systems to produce low-entropy quantum phases. We present an idealized picture of such a reservoir, deriving the scaling of reservoir entropy with system parameters, and then propose several practical implementations using only standard circuit quantum electrodynamics tools, and extract the fundamental performance limits. Finally, we explore, both analytically and numerically, the coupling of such a thermalizer to the paradigmatic Bose-Hubbard chain, where we employ it to stabilize an n=1 Mott phase. In this case, the performance is limited by the interplay of dynamically arrested thermalization of the Mott insulator and finite heat capacity of the thermalizer, characterized by its repumping rate. This work explores an approach to preparation of quantum phases of strongly interacting photons, and provides a potential route to topologically protected phases that are difficult to reach through adiabatic evolution.

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  • Received 20 January 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.95.043811

©2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied PhysicsAtomic, Molecular & OpticalQuantum Information, Science & Technology

Authors & Affiliations

Ruichao Ma1, Clai Owens1, Andrew Houck2, David I. Schuster1, and Jonathan Simon1

  • 1James Franck Institute and the Department of Physics at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
  • 2Department of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

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Issue

Vol. 95, Iss. 4 — April 2017

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