Physics
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2269
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Item Nonequilibrium Dynamics in Open Quantum Systems(2019) Young, Jeremy; Rolston, Steven L; Gorshkov, Alexey V; Physics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Due to the variety of tools available to control atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) systems, they provide a versatile platform for studying many-body physics, quantum simulation, and quantum computation. Although extensive efforts are employed to reduce coupling between the system and the environment, the effects of the environment can never fully be avoided, so it is important to develop a comprehensive understanding of open quantum systems. The system-environment coupling often leads to loss via dissipation, which can be countered by a coherent drive. Open quantum systems subject to dissipation and drive are known as driven-dissipative systems, and they provide an excellent platform for studying many-body nonequilibrium physics. The first part of this dissertation will focus on driven-dissipative phase transitions. Despite the nonequilibrium nature of these systems, the corresponding phase transitions tend to exhibit emergent equilibrium behavior. However, we will show that in the vicinity of a multicritical point where multiple phase transitions intersect, genuinely nonequilibrium criticality can emerge, even though the individual phase transitions on their own exhibit equilibrium criticality. These nonequilibrium multicritical points can exhibit a variety of exotic phenomena not possible for their equilibrium counterparts, including the emergence of complex critical exponents, which lead to discrete scale invariance and spiraling phase boundaries. Furthermore, the Liouvillian gap can take on complex values, and the fluctuation-dissipation theorem is violated, corresponding to an effective temperature which gets "hotter" and "hotter" at longer and longer wavelengths. The second part of this dissertation will focus on Rydberg atoms. In particular, we study how the spontaneous generation of contaminant Rydberg states drastically modifies the behavior of a driven-dissipative Rydberg system due to the resultant dipole-dipole interactions. These interactions lead to a complicated competition of both blockade and anti-blockade effects, leading to strongly enhanced Rydberg populations for far-detuned drive and reduced Rydberg populations for resonant drive.Item Understanding Phase Transitions, Symmetry Breaking, and Interaction-Enhanced Sensing in Optomechanical and Cold Atomic Systems(2018) Ragole, Stephen; Taylor, Jacob M; Physics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)We focus on the interaction of light and matter in atomic and optomechanical systems. These highly controllable and engineerable systems present access to new regimes and research opportunities that often do not exist outside the laboratory. As such, they frequently depart from more commonplace systems which are well understood. We extend our understanding of thermodynamic phase transitions, spontaneous symmetry breaking, and quantum-enhanced sensing to new regimes. Traditionally, phase transitions are defined in thermodynamic equilibrium. However, inspired by the success of the phase transition paradigm in non-equilibrium fields, we derive an effective thermodynamics for the mechanical excitations of an optomechanical system. Noting the common frequency separation between optical and mechanical components, we study the dynamics of the mechanical modes under the influence of the steady state of the optical modes. We identify a sufficient set of constraints which allow us to define an effective equilibrium for the mechanical system. We demonstrate these constraints by studying the buckling transition in an optomechanical membrane-in-the-middle system, which spontaneously breaks a parity symmetry. Having established a thermodynamic limit, we characterize the nature of the phase transition, which can change order based on system parameters. We extend our framework, proposing an photonic systems which realizes an SO(N) symmetry breaking transition of the same nature as the membrane-in-the-middle system. While we have treated these systems in the classical limit, their open nature has pronounced effects when other noise sources are suppressed. We study the canonical optomechanical system to unravel the origin of the semiclassical force and potential on the mechanics. We find that this force, while conservative with respect to the mechanics, deeply depends on the quantum back-action due to photon loss from the cavity. Additionally, we study the ability of cold atoms to sense rotation. We consider bosonic atoms confined to a one-dimensional ring. Employing Luttinger liquid theory to study the excitations, we find that in the strongly-repulsive regime, atomic currents can be manipulated and superposed by controlling a laser barrier. These superpositions provide a Heisenberg-limited rotation sensing method. When we include noise, the precision is reduced, but the performance still surpasses the standard quantum limit. We comment on the applicability of such a sensor for inertial sensing.