Ultrastrong coupling of a single artificial atom to an electromagnetic continuum in the nonperturbative regime

TL;DR

This paper reports the achievement of ultrastrong coupling between a superconducting artificial atom and a continuum of electromagnetic modes, surpassing previous records and entering a nonperturbative regime with potential for new physics and quantum technologies.

Contribution

The authors demonstrate a tunably coupled superconducting artificial atom reaching the ultrastrong coupling regime with an electromagnetic continuum, exceeding previous coupling strengths significantly.

Findings

Achieved ultrastrong coupling with spontaneous emission rate exceeding transition frequency.

Revealed breakdown of the atom-light distinction in the nonperturbative regime.

Opened pathways for studying complex quantum models like spin-boson and Kondo.

Abstract

The study of light-matter interaction has led to many fundamental discoveries as well as numerous important technologies. Over the last decades, great strides have been made in increasing the strength of this interaction at the single-photon level, leading to a continual exploration of new physics and applications. Recently, a major achievement has been the demonstration of the so-called strong coupling regime, a key advancement enabling great progress in quantum information science. Here, we demonstrate light-matter interaction over an order of magnitude stronger than previously reported, reaching the nonperturbative regime of ultrastrong coupling (USC). We achieve this using a superconducting artificial atom tunably coupled to the electromagnetic continuum of a one-dimensional waveguide. For the largest coupling, the spontaneous emission rate of the atom exceeds its transition frequency. In this USC regime, the description of atom and light as distinct entities breaks down, and a new description in terms of hybrid states is required. Our results open the door to a wealth of new physics and applications. Beyond light-matter interaction itself, the tunability of our system makes it a promising tool to study a number of important physical systems such as the well-known spin-boson and Kondo models.