# Dissipative dynamics in a tunable Rabi dimer with periodic harmonic driving

## TL;DR

This paper investigates how periodic harmonic driving influences photon and qubit dynamics in a Rabi dimer, considering environmental effects, and demonstrates control over photon numbers and qubit states through external driving and environment interactions.

## Contribution

It introduces a non-perturbative approach to model driven Rabi dimers coupled to a phonon bath, revealing new ways to engineer qubit states and photon dynamics.

## Key findings

- Driving suppresses photon amplitude damping and enables photon creation.
- Environmental effects can be manipulated to control photon imbalance.
- Harmonic driving enhances interqubit asymmetry, aiding qubit state engineering.

## Abstract

Recent progress on qubit manipulation allows application of periodic driving signals on qubits. In this study, a harmonic driving field is added to a Rabi dimer to engineer photon and qubit dynamics in a circuit quantum electrodynamics device. To model environmental effects, qubits in the Rabi dimer are coupled to a phonon bath with a sub-Ohmic spectral density. A non-perturbative treatment, the Dirac-Frenkel time-dependent variational principle together with the multiple Davydov D$_2$ {\it Ansatz} is employed to explore the dynamical behavior of the tunable Rabi dimer. In the absence of the phonon bath, the amplitude damping of the photon number oscillation is greatly suppressed by the driving field, and photons can be created thanks to resonances between the periodic driving field and the photon frequency. In the presence of the phonon bath, one still can change the photon numbers in two resonators, and indirectly alter the photon imbalance in the Rabi dimer by directly varying the driving signal in one qubit. It is shown that qubit states can be manipulated directly by the harmonic driving. The environment is found to strengthen the interqubit asymmetry induced by the external driving, opening up a new venue to engineer the qubit states.