Suppression of Quantum Correlations in a Clean-Disordered Atom-Nanophotonic Interface

TL;DR

This paper investigates how increasing the size of a clean region in a disordered atom-nanophotonic system suppresses quantum correlations, revealing delocalization and thermalization effects driven by long-range interactions.

Contribution

It demonstrates the impact of system size on high-order quantum correlations and entanglement in open atom-nanophotonic systems with long-range interactions, advancing understanding of nonequilibrium quantum dynamics.

Findings

Quantum correlations decrease with larger clean system size.

Entanglement entropy indicates thermalization at the interface.

Long-range interactions enable distinct quantum correlation behaviors.

Abstract

Quantum correlations are essential to the emergent behaviors of quantum systems, supporting key phenomena such as localization or delocalization of particles, quantum avalanches in many-body localized systems, and quantum information transfer. In open atom-nanophotonic systems characterized by long-range spin-exchange interactions, we examine the influence of clean system size on high-order quantum correlations among a clean-disordered atomic array with multiple atomic excitations. By initializing the system far from equilibrium, we observe a suppression of quantum correlations for localized atomic excitations in the disordered zone as the clean system size increases, showcasing the delocalization behavior in the high-order spin-exchange processes. The calculation of the entanglement entropy at the interface further substantiates this thermalizing effect. Our results manifest distinct quantum correlations enabled by long-range interactions mediated by the waveguide, enhance the theoretical comprehension of clean-disordered systems, and provide insights to nonequilibrium quantum dynamics in an atom-nanophotonic platform.