Controlling The Dynamics of Atomic Correlations Via The Coupling To A Dissipative Cavity
Controlling The Dynamics of Atomic Correlations Via The Coupling To A Dissipative Cavity
Controlling The Dynamics of Atomic Correlations Via The Coupling To A Dissipative Cavity
correlations in optical lattices to a dissipative scenario and exhibits hallmarks of synchronization. The behavior
emerges from the interplay of the quantum dissipative nature of the cavity field and the presence of a (approxi-
mate) strong symmetry in the dissipative system, providing a general recipe to engineer intriguing quantum dy-
namics. Additionally, we show that the approximate symmetry can arise dynamically during self-organization
and can be employed to obtain long-lived coherences.
Open system control and measurement control have at- tection of the dynamics by a strong symmetry, and it is related
tracted an enormous interest in the last decade for the engi- to purely imaginary eigenvalues of the Liouvillian operator,
neering of many body quantum systems [1–5]. Most propos- called rotating coherences [33]. The coupling between atoms
als target the creation of interesting steady states, e.g. topolog- and cavity determines which atomic correlations exhibit long-
ical states of fermionic matter [6], non-trivial transport proper- lived oscillations, and thus can become synchronized [34, 35],
ties [7], quantum phases stemming from long-range spin inter- and which instead are damped rapidly by the dissipative cou-
actions [8–12], or exhibiting dynamical synthetic gauge fields pling. In particular, for the chosen coupling, the coherences
[13–18]. Much less attention has been devoted to the design between sites at even distances exhibit long-lived oscillatory
of environments affecting the dynamical properties of a quan- dynamics, while the coherences at odd distances are strongly
tum system. In Ref. [19] we pointed out that it is extremely suppressed (as sketched in Fig. 1(a)). We show that the quan-
important for state engineering to consider the dynamics of tum nature of the cavity field is essential in determining this
correlations. For example, even though the BCS supercon- dynamics and that the self-organization of the approximate
ducting state itself can be targeted as a steady state by dissi- symmetry can lead to a similar behavior.
pation [20], the desired superconducting current-current cor- One important element for understanding the dynamics of
relations are not present as long as the dissipative coupling is a dissipative system is the spectrum of the Liouvillian. For
applied [19]. large dissipation rates Γ, the eigenvalues of the Liouvillian
In contrast, for isolated many body systems the dynami- are clustered in bands, with gaps between the real parts pro-
cal features were in the spotlight in the last years. In this portional to Γ. An exemplary spectrum of the Bose-Hubbard
regard, an often employed scenario in ultracold atoms experi- model coupled to a dissipative cavity is shown in Fig. 1(b), de-
ments is the quantum quench [21–25], e.g. in the observation termined using exact diagonalization (ED). Due to the direct
of the collapse and revival of the matter wave field of a Bose- dissipative coupling to the photon losses, most eigenstates of
Einstein condensate [26]. In this experiment, a quench of the Liouvillian have an eigenvalue whose real part is ∝ Γ,
the optical lattice potential was performed on a Bose-Einstein e.g. in the subspaces marked with P1 and P2 , signaling an
condensate and despite the presence of an extremely strong exponential decay of their contribution to the time evolution
interactions a series of collapses and revivals of the coherence of the density matrix. However, in many-body and hybrid sys-
has been observed. The origin of the persistent oscillations tems, the situation can be much more complex and eigenstates
of long-lived coherences could be associated with the inter- can exist with decay rates smaller than Γ, i.e. the states lying
action present between atoms and is therefore a many-body in the lowest subspace P0 . The dynamics which takes place
dynamical effect. Another proposed scenario in which persis- in P0 is protected from the fast decay, since a direct coupling
tent oscillations are present is due to a periodic Floquet driving to dissipation is absent. Previous open system engineering [3]
[27, 28]. In such a situation, the so-called time crystal behav- used often the decoherence free subspace Λ0 (subspace of P0 ),
ior has been observed [29–32], in which oscillations with a i.e. corresponding to vanishing real parts of the eigenvalues.
frequency different from the driving frequency arise. In the following, we show that in the considered sce-
In this work, we present a general recipe on how the in- nario exciting possibilities arise to engineer dynamical fea-
terplay of dissipation and symmetries can be used in order to tures within the meta-stable subspace P0 . By designing the
engineer intriguing dynamical phenomena in open quantum dissipative coupling, here via the coupling to a lossy cav-
systems. We exemplify this by designing long lived synchro- ity, we can choose which dynamical features are rapidly sup-
nized coherences with a spatial structure for a system of inter- pressed (e.g., in Fig. 1(b) correlations probing the excited sub-
acting bosonic atoms coupled to an optical cavity. The real- spaces Λ1 within P0 , or Pn>0 ) and which are protected up to
ization of the long lived coherences relies on an intricate in- long times (with dynamics dominated by the lowest subspace
terplay between the dissipative state engineering and the pro- Λ0 within P0 ). For example, in Fig. 1(b)-(c), the expectation
2
(a) (e) where a and a† are the annihilation and creation operators for
the photon mode and the dissipation of the photons due to the
imperfections of the mirror has strength Γ. The Hamiltonian
H contains the terms
(b) (c) (d)
L L−1
UX X †
Hint = nj (nj − 1), Hkin = −J (bj bj+1 + H.c.),
2 j=1 j=1
L
X
Hc = ℏδa† a, Hac = −ℏΩ(a + a† ) (−1)j nj . (2)
j=1
(a) (b)
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
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7
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have eigenvalues with vanishing real part Furthermore, with the knowledge of the different dissipa-
tive subspaces for J = 0 one can compute perturbatively the
λ0 = −i(u − u′ ). (C.7) steady state for finite and small J [19, 60, 75]. Considering
the contributions from the subspaces that can be accessed via
In the case u = u′ we have traceless states with λ0 = 0,
one hopping event, Λ1 and back, the effective dynamics for
showing the existence of off-diagonal coherences be-
the elements of the decoherence free subspace is given by
tween Fock states that can survive in the steady states.
Alternatively, for u ̸= u′ , we obtain states with purely ∂ 1
ρ0 = λ0 ρ0 + 2 X0 Hkin , L−1
0 X1 [Hkin , ρ0 ] . (C.11)
imaginary eigenvalues. These states, called rotating co- ∂t ℏ
herences [33], can lead to persistent synchronized os- The operators X0 and X1 are the projectors onto the decoher-
cillations in the long time limit [34, 35]. ence free subspace Λ0 and excited subspace Λ1 . The kinetic
The evolution of some of these states can be probed by term breaks the strong symmetry of L0 , which determines a
monitoring, for example, the evolution of single particle transition from multiple steady states to a unique steady state
correlations at even distances b†j bj+2d [34, 35], as they given by the mixed state [60, 64]
probe the coherences induced by states which have the 1 X
same imbalance ∆ in the bra and the ket contribution. ρmix = |α(∆); {nj }⟩ ⟨α(∆); {nj }| , (C.12)
N
{nj }
Furthermore, as shown in Ref. [34, 35], we can use
the operators b†i bi+2d to construct the states with purely where the sum runs over all possible density configurations
imaginary eigenvalues. As the following conditions are {nj } and N is the number of these configurations. The state
fulfilled ρmix exhibits strong, however classical, correlations between
the cavity field and the atoms, as for each term in the sum the
[Hc + Hint + Hac , b†i bi+2d ]ρ0,st = (C.8) cavity field is fully determined by the atomic imbalance. By
= −U (ni+2d − 1 − ni )b†i bi+2d ρ0,st , tracing out the photonic states we obtain a fully mixed, infinite
temperature, state for the atoms as all density configurations
[a, b†i bi+2d ]ρ0,st = 0, have the same probability.
All the states with a zero real part, Eq. (C.2) and
Eq. (C.6), are part of the decoherence free subspace Λ0
(see Fig. 1 in the main text).
• For ∆ ̸= ∆′ we observe in Eq. (C.5) that the real part of
the eigenvalues is finite and proportional to (∆ − ∆′ )2 .
Thus, the states with the lowest decaying rate are the
ones for which ∆′ = ∆ ± 2, which we mark by the FIG. D1: Time evolution of the photon number for 500 of the sam-
subspace Λ1 in Fig. 1 in the main text, pled quantum trajectories, for the√parameters L = 14, N = 7 ,
√ = 5000, U/J = 10, (a) ℏΩ N /J = 6614, ℏΓ/J = 500, (b)
ℏδ/J
ρ1 = |α(∆); {nj }⟩ α(∆ ± 2); {n′j } , (C.9) ℏΩ N /J = 1323, ℏΓ/J = 750. The dashed black lines represent
the photon number expected for the possible values of the imbalance
corresponding to the eigenvalues ∆ ∈ {±1, ±3, ±5, ±7}.