Statistical mechanics of Floquet systems with regular and chaotic states

Cavity-Based Reservoir Engineering for Floquet-Engineered Superconducting Circuits

Considering the example of superconducting circuits, we show how Floquet engineering can be combined with reservoir engineering for the controlled preparation of target states. Floquet engineering refers to the control of a quantum system by means of time-periodic forcing, typically in the high-frequency regime, so that the system is governed effectively by a time-independent Floquet Hamiltonian with novel interesting properties. Reservoir engineering, on the other hand, can be achieved in superconducting circuits by coupling a system of artificial atoms (or qubits) dispersively to pumped leaky cavities, so that the induced dissipation guides the system into a desired target state. It is not obvious that the two approaches can be combined, since reaching the dispersive regime, in which system and cavities exchange excitations only virtually, can be spoiled by driving-induced resonant transitions. However, working in the extended Floquet space and treating both system-cavity coupling as well as driving-induced excitation processes on the same footing perturbatively, we identify regimes, where reservoir engineering of targeted Floquet states is possible and accurately described by an effective time-independent master equation. We successfully benchmark our approach for the preparation of the ground state in a system of interacting bosons subjected to Floquet-engineered magnetic fields in different lattice geometries.

The Rabi problem with elliptical polarization

We consider the solution of the equation of motion of a classical/quantum spin subject to a monochromatical, elliptically polarized external field. The classical Rabi problem can be reduced to third-order differential equations with polynomial coefficients and hence solved in terms of power series in close analogy to the confluent Heun equation occurring for linear polarization. Application of Floquet theory yields physically interesting quantities like the quasienergy as a function of the problem’s parameters and expressions for the Bloch–Siegert shift of resonance frequencies. Various limit cases are thoroughly investigated.

Periodic thermodynamics of the Rabi model with circular polarization for arbitrary spin quantum numbers

We consider a spin s subjected to both a static and an orthogonally applied oscillating, circularly polarized magnetic field while being coupled to a heat bath and analytically determine the quasistationary distribution of its Floquet-state occupation probabilities for arbitrarily strong driving. This distribution is shown to be Boltzmannian with a quasitemperature which is different from the temperature of the bath and independent of the spin quantum number. We discover a remarkable formal analogy between the quasithermal magnetism of the nonequilibrium steady state of a driven ideal paramagnetic material and the usual thermal paramagnetism. Nonetheless, the response of such a material to the combined fields is predicted to show several unexpected features, even allowing one to turn a paramagnet into a diamagnet under strong driving. Thus, we argue that experimental measurements of this response may provide key paradigms for the emerging field of periodic thermodynamics.

Periodic thermodynamics of the parametrically driven harmonic oscillator

We determine the quasistationary distribution of Floquet-state occupation probabilities for a parametrically driven harmonic oscillator coupled to a thermal bath. Since the system exhibits detailed balance, and the canonical representatives of its quasienergies are equidistant, these probabilities are given by a geometrical Boltzmann distribution, but its quasitemperature differs from the actual temperature of the bath, being affected by the functional form of the latter's spectral density. We provide two examples of quasithermal engineering, i.e., of deliberate manipulation of the quasistationary distribution by suitable design of the spectral density: We show that the driven system can effectively be made colder than the undriven one, and demonstrate that quasithermal instability can occur even when the system is mechanically stable.

Kinetics and thermodynamics of a driven open quantum system

Redfield theory provides a closed kinetic description of a quantum system in weak contact with a very dense reservoir. Landau-Zener theory does the same for a time-dependent driven system in contact with a sparse reservoir. Using a simple model, we analyze the validity of these two theories by comparing their predictions with exact numerical results. We show that despite their a priori different range of validity, these two descriptions can give rise to an identical quantum master equation. Both theories can be used for a nonequilibrium thermodynamic description, which we show is consistent with exact thermodynamic identities evaluated in the full system-reservoir space. We emphasize the importance of properly accounting for the system-reservoir interaction energy and of operating in regimes where the reservoir can be considered as close to ideal.

Nonequilibrium steady states of ideal bosonic and fermionic quantum gases

We investigate nonequilibrium steady states of driven-dissipative ideal quantum gases of both bosons and fermions. We focus on systems of sharp particle number that are driven out of equilibrium either by the coupling to several heat baths of different temperature or by time-periodic driving in combination with the coupling to a heat bath. Within the framework of (Floquet-)Born-Markov theory, several analytical and numerical methods are described in detail. This includes a mean-field theory in terms of occupation numbers, an augmented mean-field theory taking into account also nontrivial two-particle correlations, and quantum-jump-type Monte Carlo simulations. For the case of the ideal Fermi gas, these methods are applied to simple lattice models and the possibility of achieving exotic states via bath engineering is pointed out. The largest part of this work is devoted to bosonic quantum gases and the phenomenon of Bose selection, a nonequilibrium generalization of Bose condensation, where multiple single-particle states are selected to acquire a large occupation [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 240405 (2013)]. In this context, among others, we provide a theory for transitions where the set of selected states changes, describe an efficient algorithm for finding the set of selected states, investigate beyond-mean-field effects, and identify the dominant mechanisms for heat transport in the Bose-selected state.

Energy flow in periodic thermodynamics

A key quantity characterizing a time-periodically forced quantum system coupled to a heat bath is the energy flowing in the steady state through the system into the bath, where it is dissipated. We derive a general expression which allows one to compute this energy dissipation rate for a heat bath consisting of a large number of harmonic oscillators and work out two analytically solvable model examples. In particular, we distinguish between genuine transitions effectuating a change of the systems's Floquet state and pseudotransitions preserving that state; the latter are shown to yield an important contribution to the total dissipation rate. Our results suggest possible driving-mediated heating and cooling schemes on the quantum level. They also indicate that a driven system does not necessarily occupy only a single Floquet state when in contact with a zero-temperature bath.

Generalized Bose-Einstein condensation into multiple states in driven-dissipative systems

Bose-Einstein condensation, the macroscopic occupation of a single quantum state, appears in equilibrium quantum statistical mechanics and persists also in the hydrodynamic regime close to equilibrium. Here we show that even when a degenerate Bose gas is driven into a steady state far from equilibrium, where the notion of a single-particle ground state becomes meaningless, Bose-Einstein condensation survives in a generalized form: the unambiguous selection of an odd number of states acquiring large occupations. Within mean-field theory we derive a criterion for when a single state and when multiple states are Bose selected in a noninteracting gas. We study the effect in several driven-dissipative model systems, and propose a quantum switch for heat conductivity based on shifting between one and three selected states.