Photon pair production by STIRAP in ultrastrongly coupled matter-radiation systems

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to dynamically detect virtual photon pairs in ultrastrongly coupled matter-radiation systems using a STIRAP-like process, providing clear evidence of USC's non-perturbative physics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to amplify virtual photon pair production in USC systems via a coherent control technique akin to STIRAP.

Findings

Theoretical demonstration of virtual photon pair detection.

Proposal of a control scheme achieving near 100% efficiency.

Insight into non-perturbative physics in USC regimes.

Abstract

Artificial atoms (AA) offer the possibility to design physical systems implementing new regimes of ultrastrong coupling (USC) between radiation and matter, where previously unexplored non-perturbative physics emerges. While experiments so far provided only spectroscopic evidence of USC, we propose the dynamical detection of virtual photon pairs in the dressed eigenstates, which is a "smoking gun" of the very existence of USC in nature. We show how to coherently amplify this channel to reach 100% efficiency by operating advanced control similar to stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP).