Metastability in the Dissipative Quantum Rabi Model
arXiv:2511.21508 · doi:10.1103/j3rg-hy3s
Abstract
The dissipative quantum Rabi model exhibits rich non-equilibrium physics, including a dissipative phase transition from the normal phase to the superradiant phase. In this work, we investigate the stability of the superradiant phase in the presence of a weak spin relaxation. We find that even a weak spin relaxation can render the superradiant phase a superradiant metastable phase, in which symmetry-breaking states are stable only for a finite time. This arises because each spin jump induced by relaxation applies as a strong perturbation to the system, potentially driving the system from a symmetry-breaking state to the symmetry-preserving saddle point with finite probability, before it eventually relaxes back to a symmetry-breaking state. Such dynamical processes lead to a finite lifetime of the symmetry-breaking states and restore the symmetry in the steady state. To substantiate these results, we combine mean-field and cumulant expansion analyses with exact numerical simulations. The lifetimes of the symmetry-breaking states are analyzed in finite-size systems and the conclusions are extrapolated to the thermodynamic limit via finite-size scaling. Our findings establish the metastable nature of the symmetry-breaking states in the dissipative quantum Rabi model and reveal the complexity of the dissipative phase transition beyond their equilibrium counterpart. The mechanisms uncovered here can be generalized to a broad class of open quantum systems, highlighting fundamental distinctions between equilibrium phase transitions and steady-state phase transitions.
13 pages, 8 figures
References in corpus (52)
- Beyond the Jaynes-Cummings model: circuit QED in the ultrastrong coupling regime
- Ultrastrong coupling regimes of light-matter interaction
- On the Integrability of the Rabi Model
- Chaos and the Quantum Phase Transition in the Dicke Model
- Superconducting qubit-oscillator circuit beyond the ultrastrong-coupling regime
- Quantum Chaos Triggered by Precursors of a Quantum Phase Transition: The Dicke Model
- Quantum Phase Transition and Universal Dynamics in the Rabi model
- Spectral theory of Liouvillians for dissipative phase transitions
- Qubit-oscillator systems in the ultrastrong-coupling regime and their potential for preparing nonclassical states
- Dissipative Phase Transition in Central Spin Systems
- Critical Quantum metrology with a finite-component quantum phase transition
- Towards a theory of metastability in open quantum dynamics
- Experimentally simulating the dynamics of quantum light and matter at ultrastrong coupling
- Collective quantum jumps of Rydberg atoms
- Variational principle for steady states of dissipative quantum many-body systems
- Dynamic framework for criticality-enhanced quantum sensing
- Superradiance transition in a system with a single qubit and a single oscillator
- Observation of a quantum phase transition in the quantum Rabi model with a single trapped ion
- Universal scaling and critical exponents of the anisotropic quantum Rabi model
- Dynamical phases and intermittency of the dissipative quantum Ising model
- Full counting statistics and phase diagram of a dissipative Rydberg gas
- Analog quantum simulation of the Rabi model in the ultra-strong coupling regime
- Criticality-Enhanced Quantum Sensing via Continuous Measurement
- Quantum simulation of the quantum Rabi model in a trapped ion
- Dissipative Phase Transition in the Open Quantum Rabi Model
- Probing the Dynamics of Superradiant Quantum Phase Transition in a Single Trapped-Ion
- Quantum phase transition in the Dicke model with critical and non-critical entanglement
- Dissipation-induced anomalous multicritical phenomena
- Characterization of dynamical phase transitions in quantum jump trajectories beyond the properties of the stationary state
- Bistability vs. Metastability in Driven Dissipative Rydberg Gases
- Emerging dissipative phases in a superradiant quantum gas with tunable decay
- Spin-motion entanglement and state diagnosis with squeezed oscillator wavepackets
- QuantumCumulants.jl: A Julia framework for generalized mean-field equations in open quantum systems
- Beyond mean-field bistability in driven-dissipative lattices: bunching-antibunching transition and quantum simulation
- Generation of squeezed states of microwave radiation in a superconducting resonant circuit
- Dissipation driven quantum phase transitions and symmetry breaking
- Universal spectral features of ultrastrongly coupled systems
- Driven-dissipative many-body systems with mixed power-law interactions: Bistabilities and temperature-driven non-equilibrium phase transitions
- Metastability in an open quantum Ising model
- Intrinsic Optical Bistability in a Strongly-Driven Rydberg Ensemble
- Finite-system Multicriticality at the Superradiant Quantum Phase Transition
- Cumulant expansion for the treatment of light-matter interactions in arbitrary material structures
- Dynamical properties of dissipative XYZ Heisenberg lattices
- Theory of classical metastability in open quantum systems
- Efficient Information Retrieval for Sensing via Continuous Measurement
- Steady States of Infinite-Size Dissipative Quantum Chains via Imaginary Time Evolution
- Continuous Dissipative Phase Transitions without Symmetry Breaking
- Criticality-Enhanced Quantum Sensing with a Parametric Superconducting Resonator
- Metastability in the driven-dissipative Rabi model
- Multicritical dissipative phase transitions in the anisotropic open quantum Rabi model
- Revealing the nature of non-equilibrium phase transitions with quantum trajectories
- Theory of Metastability in Discrete-Time Open Quantum Dynamics