Steady-state Phase Diagram of a Weakly Driven Chiral-coupled Atomic Chain

TL;DR

This paper maps the steady-state phases of a weakly driven chiral atomic chain, revealing interaction-driven crystalline orders, edge states, and non-ergodic dynamics, advancing understanding of nonreciprocal quantum many-body systems.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed phase diagram of a chiral-coupled atomic chain under weak excitation, identifying novel quantum phases and critical points related to decoherence-free sectors.

Findings

Identification of crystalline, edge, and hole excitations

Discovery of two critical points linked to subradiant sectors

Observation of non-ergodic butterfly-like dynamics

Abstract

A chiral-coupled atomic chain of two-level quantum emitters allows strong resonant dipole-dipole interactions, which enables significant collective couplings between every other emitters. We numerically obtain the steady-state phase diagram of such system under weak excitations, where interaction-driven states of crystalline orders, edge or hole excitations, and dichotomy of chiral flow are identified. We distinguish these phases by participation ratios and structure factors, and find two critical points which relate to decoherence-free subradiant sectors of the system. We further investigate the transport of excitations and emergence of crystalline orders under spatially-varying excitation detunings, and present non-ergodic butterfly-like system dynamics in the phase of extended hole excitations with a signature of persistent subharmonic oscillations. Our results demonstrate the interaction-induced quantum phases of matter with chiral couplings, and pave the way toward simulations of many-body states in nonreciprocal quantum optical systems.