Critical slowing down in driven-dissipative Bose-Hubbard lattices

TL;DR

This paper investigates the dynamical behavior of driven-dissipative Bose-Hubbard lattices near phase transitions, revealing critical slowing down in 2D systems through stochastic simulations, with implications for optical cavity arrays.

Contribution

It introduces a stochastic trajectory approach to study dynamical properties of phase transitions in driven-dissipative Bose-Hubbard models, highlighting dimensional differences in critical slowing down.

Findings

Critical slowing down observed in 2D lattices with increasing system size.

No critical slowing down in 1D arrays.

Characterization of collective phases near the transition.

Abstract

We theoretically explore the dynamical properties of a first-order dissipative phase transition in coherently driven Bose-Hubbard systems, describing, e.g., lattices of coupled nonlinear optical cavities. Via stochastic trajectory calculations based on the truncated Wigner approximation, we investigate the dynamical behavior as a function of system size for 1D and 2D square lattices in the regime where mean-field theory predicts nonlinear bistability. We show that a critical slowing down emerges for increasing number of sites in 2D square lattices, while it is absent in 1D arrays. We characterize the peculiar properties of the collective phases in the critical region.