Sisyphus Thermalization of Photons in a Double Quantum Dot

Published

July 29, 2016

Author(s)

Michael Gullans, J. Stehlik, Y.-Y. Liu, Christopher Eichler, Jason Petta, Jacob M. Taylor

Abstract

A strongly driven quantum system coupled to a thermalizing bath generically evolves into a highly non-thermal state as the external drive competes with the equilibrating force of the bath. We demonstrate a notable exception to this picture for a microwave resonator interacting with a periodically driven double quantum dot (DQD). In the limit of strong driving and long times, we show that the resonator field can be driven into a thermal state with a chemical potential given by a harmonic of the drive frequency. Such tunable chemical potentials are achievable with current devices and would have broad utility for quantum simulation in circuit quantum electrodynamics. As an example, we show how several DQDs embedded in an array of microwave resonators can induce a phase transition to a Bose-Einstein condensate of light.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Volume

117

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

DOI Link

Keywords

Double quantum dots, Quantum simulation, Bose-Einstein condensates

Citation

Gullans, M. , Stehlik, J. , Liu, Y. , Eichler, C. , Petta, J. and Taylor, J. (2016), Sisyphus Thermalization of Photons in a Double Quantum Dot, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.056801 (Accessed October 14, 2025)