# Protected cat states from kinetic driving of a boson gas

## TL;DR

This paper explores how kinetic driving in a one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard gas can produce protected macroscopic superposition states, or cat states, with potential robustness against certain perturbations.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel kinetic driving scheme that stabilizes macroscopic superpositions in a bosonic system, revealing new insights into many-body quantum states.

## Key findings

- Ground state is a macroscopic superposition of opposite momentum states.
- Kinetic driving suppresses particle hopping, leading to a Richardson-like model.
- System maintains superposition under flux variations and physical perturbations.

## Abstract

We investigate the behavior of a one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard gas in both a ring and a hard-wall box, whose kinetic energy is made to oscillate with zero time-average, which suppresses first-order particle hopping. For intermediate and large driving amplitudes the system in the ring has similarities to the Richardson model, but with a peculiar type of pairing and an attractive interaction in momentum space. This analogy permits an understanding of some key features of the interacting boson problem. The ground state is a macroscopic quantum superposition, or cat state, of two many-body states collectively occupying opposite momentum eigenstates. Interactions give rise to a reduction (or modified depletion) cloud that is common to both macroscopically distinct states. Symmetry arguments permit a precise identification of the two orthonormal macroscopic many-body branches which combine to yield the ground state. In the ring, the system is sensitive to variations of the effective flux but in such a way that the macroscopic superposition is preserved. We discuss other physical aspects that contribute to protect the cat-like nature of the ground state.