Nonreciprocal quantum phase transition in cavity magnonics

TL;DR

This paper explores how spinning a microwave resonator with a YIG sphere induces nonreciprocal quantum phase transitions, enabling controllable quantum phases and advancing nonreciprocal magnonic device design.

Contribution

It demonstrates nonreciprocal quantum phase transitions in cavity magnonics driven by spinning resonators, highlighting the role of Sagnac-Fizeau shift and Kerr nonlinearity for controllability.

Findings

Spinning resonator modifies critical driving strengths for phase transitions.

Quantum phase transition is nonreciprocal, occurring only in one driving direction.

Spinning speed controls the quantum phase, enabling tunability.

Abstract

We investigate the nonreciprocal quantum phase transition in a cavity magnonic system driven by a parametric field, where an yttrium iron garnet (YIG) sphere is placed in a spinning microwave resonator. The system exhibits a rich phase diagram due to both magnon Kerr nonlinearity in YIG and parametric drive on the resonator. Especially, Sagnac-Fizeau shift caused by the spinning of the resonator brings about a significant modification in the critical driving strengths for second- and first-order quantum phase transitions, which means that the highly controllable quantum phase can be realized by the spinning speed of the resonator. More importantly, based on the difference in the detunings of the counterclockwise and clockwise modes induced by spinning direction of the resonator, we show that the phase transition in this system is nonreciprocal, that is, the quantum phase transition occurs when the cavity is driven in one direction but not the other. Our work offers an alternative path to engineer and design nonreciprocal magnonic devices.