Generation of Spin Cat States in an Engineered Dicke Model

TL;DR

This paper explores how engineered light-matter interactions in cavity and ion trap systems can generate spin cat states and Dicke states through controlled dynamics and quantum jumps.

Contribution

It demonstrates the generation of spin cat states and Dicke states in an engineered Dicke model, including the effects of quantum jumps and entangled-state cycles.

Findings

Finite-time creation of spin cat states via one-axis twisting.

Conditional evolution leads to Dicke states with no photon emissions.

Quantum jumps induce probabilistic entangled-state cycles.

Abstract

We study trajectories of collective spin states of an ensemble of spinors. The spinors considered here are either trapped ions in free space or atoms confined in a cavity, both systems of which are engineered through their interactions with light fields to obey an effective Dicke model. In an appropriate limit of the Dicke model, one obtains one-axis twisting dynamics of the collective spin and evolution after a finite time to a spin cat state, or, in the long-time limit, the Dicke state $|S,0\rangle_x$, conditioned upon there being no photon emissions from the system (i.e., no quantum jumps). If there is a jump, however, the system evolves probabilistically into one of a finite number of entangled-state cycles, where the system then undergoes a persistent sequence of jumps between two Dicke state superpositions in a rotated basis. The different cycles can be distinguished by the frequency at which jumps occur.