Excited states of coherent harmonic qubits with long-range photon coupling and dissipation

Abstract

It is known that ensembles of interacting oscillators or qubits can exhibit the phenomenon of quantum synchronization. In this work we consider a set of $N$ identical two-state systems that we call ``harmonic qubits'', because the kinetic part of their Hamiltonian is of the form $\omega_0 \sum_i a^\dagger_i a_i$, coupled through a multi-state ``photon'' mode subject to dissipation. It has been proven numerically that when the coupling between the qubits and the photon is sufficiently strong, the ensemble condenses into a ground state with negative energy, the energy gap is proportional to $N$ and there are clear cross correlations $\langle a^\dagger_i a_j \rangle$. Here we are interested into the energy spectrum of the excited states of this system. In order to obtain information on the coherent transitions we introduce a weak coupling of each qubit with an external oscillator of variable frequency $\omega$ and we check via Monte Carlo time evolution for which values of $\omega$ variations in the occupation of the external oscillator occur. After adding a second external oscillator coupled to the first only through the $N$ qubits, we also look at the energy transfer between the two external oscillators in dependence on their frequency, a transfer which is possible only through the excited states of the qubits. Above threshold (when $E_0<0$) we find resonant transfer at frequencies which are definitely higher, and growing with $N$. This signals the presence of collective excited states, separated by large energy gaps, which are absent below threshold.