Quantum phase transition in an array of coupled dissipative cavities

TL;DR

This paper investigates how dissipation affects the superfluid-Mott insulator transition in coupled cavity arrays, revealing that bath coupling induces localization and destabilizes superfluidity.

Contribution

It provides an analytical framework showing dissipation's role in renormalizing eigenmodes and inducing phase transitions in cavity arrays.

Findings

Bath coupling causes eigenmode renormalization.

Dissipation leads to localization of photons.

Superfluid state becomes unstable due to dissipation.

Abstract

The features of superfluid-Mott insulator phase transition in the array of dissipative nonlinear cavities are analyzed. We show analytically that the coupling to the bath can be reduced to renormalizing the eigenmodes of atom-cavity system. This gives rise to a localizing effect and drives the system into mixed states. For the superfluid state, a dynamical instability will lead to a sweeping to a localized state of photons. For the Mott state, a dissipation-induced fluctuation will suppress the restoring of long-range phase coherence driven by interaction.