Cavity Induced Collective Behavior in the Polaritonic Ground State

TL;DR

This paper explores how cavity quantum electrodynamics induces collective behaviors in many-particle systems, leading to enhanced localization, modified photonic properties, and stable superradiant ground states through light-matter interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a model of many particles coupled to a quantum cavity, revealing collective polariton states, long-range interactions, and the necessity of the A^2 term for stability.

Findings

Collective polariton states emerge via center of mass coupling.

Long-range interactions mediated by the cavity enhance localization.

The A^2 term is essential for system stability.

Abstract

Cavity quantum electrodynamics provides an ideal platform to engineer and control light-matter interactions with polariton quasiparticles. In this work, we investigate collective phenomena in a system of many particles in a harmonic trap coupled to a homogeneous quantum cavity field. The system couples collectively to the cavity field, through its center of mass, and collective polariton states emerge. The cavity field mediates pairwise long-range interactions and enhances the effective mass of the particles. This leads to an enhancement of localization in the matter ground state density, which features a maximum when light and matter are on resonance, and demonstrates a Dicke-like, collective behavior with the particle number. The light-matter interaction also modifies the photonic properties of the polariton system, as the ground state is populated with bunched photons. In addition, it is shown that the diamagnetic $\mathbf{A}^2$ term is necessary for the stability of the system, as otherwise the superradiant ground state instability occurs. We demonstrate that coherent transfer of polaritonic population is possbile with an external magnetic field and by monitoring the Landau-Zener transition probability.