Quantum phase transition and spontaneous symmetry breaking in a nonlinear quantum Rabi model

Source abstract

Abstract The experimental advance on light–matter interaction into strong couplings has invalidated the Jaynes–Cummings model and brought the quantum Rabi model (QRM) to more relevance. The QRM only involves linear coupling via a single -photon process (SPP), while the nonlinear two -photon process (TPP) is weaker and conventionally neglected. However, we find a contrary trend that enhancing the linear coupling might not suppress the nonlinear effect more but backfire to trigger some collapse of linear characters. Indeed, in strong SPP couplings a tiny strength of the TPP may dramatically change properties of the system, like a symmetry spontaneous breaking. By extracting the ground-state phase diagram including both a SPP and TPP, we find the TPP in low frequency limit induces a quantum phase transition with continuity–discontinuity double faces, which split into two distinct transitions at finite frequencies and yields a triple point. Our analysis unveils a subtle SPP–TPP entanglement.