Superradiant Solid in Cavity QED Coupled to a Lattice of Rydberg Gas

Abstract

We study an optical cavity coupled to a lattice of Rydberg atoms, which can be represented by a generalized Dicke model. We show that the competition between the atomic interaction and atom-light coupling induces a rich phase diagram. A novel "superradiant solid" (SRS) phase is found, where both the superradiance and crystalline orders coexist. Different from the normal second order superradiance (SR) transition, here both the Solid-1/2 and SRS to SR phase transitions are first order. These results are confirmed by the large scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations.