Suppressed Energy Relaxation in the Quantum Rabi Model at the Critical Point

TL;DR

This paper investigates the quantum Rabi model at its critical point, revealing suppressed energy relaxation and rapid phase decoherence, with implications for quantum metrology.

Contribution

It introduces a modified master equation that accurately describes the system near criticality, avoiding unphysical predictions and highlighting the effects of spectrum collapse.

Findings

Energy relaxation is suppressed at the critical point.

Phase coherence rapidly diminishes at the critical point.

Quantum metrological precision is limited by dephasing effects.

Abstract

We derive a modified master equation for the quantum Rabi model in the parameter regime where quantum criticality can occur. The modified master equation can avoid some unphysical predictions, such as excitations in the system at zero temperature and emission of ground-state photons. Due to spectrum collapse, we find that there is mostly no energy relaxation in the system at the critical point. For the same reason, phase coherence rapidly reduces and vanishes at the critical point. We analyze the quantum metrological limits of the system in the presence of dephasing. These results show a strong limitation on the precision of phase-shift estimation.