arXiv subjects

Alexandre Le Boité

Publications and source records attributed to Alexandre Le Boité.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Boosted Optomechanics with a Fluid of Nonlinear Polaritons

Merging optomechanics and polaritonics opens stimulating perspectives like the giant enhancement of optomechanical interaction and the enrichment of optomechanics with effective nonlinear photons. The experimental implementation of these concepts has however remained elusive. Here we report on the resonant optical control of polaritonic optomechanical resonators constituted of semiconductor disks embedding quantum wells. Whispering gallery photons and quantum well excitons strongly couple, leading to the emergence of polaritons that couple to the mechanical vibrations of the disk. We perform resonant optomechanical frequency response experiments on these resonators, modeled introducing a minimal set of constitutive equations, from which we extract the polariton-modified optomechanical coupling $g_0$ and the polariton nonlinearities. We observe a boost of $g_0$ by more than a decade compared to bare photons, reaching to a record $g_0$ for whispering gallery resonators of $22$ MHz, and analyze experimentally and theoretically its evolution as function of the polariton's composition. We also measure a clear hierarchy of three polaritonic nonlinearities, again analyzed as function of polariton composition, establishing a bridge between past unconciliated reports in polaritonics. Grounded on experimental and theoretical foundations, resonant polaritonic optomechanics is set ready for an optomechanical exploration of quantum fluids of polaritons.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Nonlinearity-driven Topology via Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking

Topology and nonlinearity are deeply connected. However, whether topological effects can arise solely from the structure of nonlinear interaction terms, and the nature of the resulting topological phases, remain to large extent open questions. Here we consider a chain of parametrically-driven quantum resonators coupled only via weak nearest-neighbour cross-Kerr interaction, without any quadratic tunneling term. We show that, when the drive overcomes a critical threshold value, the system undergoes a transition from the atomic limit of decoupled oscillators to a symmetry-broken topological phase. The topology is dictated by the structure of the Kerr nonlinearity, yielding a non-trivial bulk-boundary correspondence. In the topological phase, we find different effective models for periodic and open boundary conditions and derive analytical approximations for the low-energy spectrum, identifying the conditions to observe topological edge modes.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Efficient estimation of trainability for variational quantum circuits

Parameterized quantum circuits used as variational ansätze are emerging as promising tools to tackle complex problems ranging from quantum chemistry to combinatorial optimization. These variational quantum circuits can suffer from the well-known curse of barren plateaus, which is characterized by an exponential vanishing of the cost-function gradient with the system size, making training unfeasible for practical applications. Since a generic quantum circuit cannot be simulated efficiently, the determination of its trainability is an important problem. Here we find an efficient method to compute the gradient of the cost function and its variance for a wide class of variational quantum circuits. Our scheme relies on our proof of an exact mapping from randomly initialized circuits to a set of Clifford circuits that can be efficiently simulated on a classical computer by virtue of the celebrated Gottesmann-Knill theorem. This method is scalable and can be used to certify trainability for variational quantum circuits and explore design strategies that can overcome the barren plateau problem. As illustrative examples, we show results with up to 100 qubits.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Dynamics with autoregressive neural quantum states: application to critical quench dynamics

Despite very promising results, capturing the dynamics of complex quantum systems with neural-network ansätze has been plagued by several problems, one of which being stochastic noise that makes the dynamics unstable and highly dependent on some regularization hyperparameters. We present an alternative general scheme that enables one to capture long-time dynamics of quantum systems in a stable fashion, provided the neural-network ansatz is normalized, which can be ensured by the autoregressive property of the chosen ansatz. We then apply the scheme to time-dependent quench dynamics by investigating the Kibble-Zurek mechanism in the two-dimensional quantum Ising model. We find an excellent agreement with exact dynamics for small systems and are able to recover scaling laws in agreement with other variational methods.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Noisy Quantum Kernel Machines

In the noisy intermediate-scale quantum era, an important goal is the conception of implementable algorithms that exploit the rich dynamics of quantum systems and the high dimensionality of the underlying Hilbert spaces to perform tasks while prescinding from noise-proof physical systems. An emerging class of quantum learning machines is that based on the paradigm of quantum kernels. Here, we study how dissipation and decoherence affect their performance. We address this issue by investigating the expressivity and the generalization capacity of these models within the framework of kernel theory. We introduce and study the effective kernel rank, a figure of merit that quantifies the number of independent features a noisy quantum kernel is able to extract from input data. Moreover, we derive an upper bound on the generalization error of the model that involves the average purity of the encoded states. Thereby we show that decoherence and dissipation can be seen as an implicit regularization for the quantum kernel machines. As an illustrative example, we report exact finite-size simulations of machines based on chains of driven-dissipative quantum spins to perform a classification task, where the input data are encoded into the driving fields and the quantum physical system is fixed. We determine how the performance of noisy kernel machines scales with the number of nodes (chain sites) as a function of decoherence and examine the effect of imperfect measurements.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Non-Gaussian superradiant transition via three-body ultrastrong coupling

We introduce a class of quantum optical Hamiltonian characterized by three-body couplings, and propose a circuit-QED scheme based on state-of-the-art technology that implements the considered model. Unlike two-body light-matter interactions, this three-body coupling Hamiltonian is exclusively composed of terms which do not conserve the particle number. We explore the three-body ultrastrong coupling regime, showing the emergence of a superradiant phase transition which is of first order, is characterized by the breaking of a $\mathbb{Z}_2\times \mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry and has a strongly non-Gaussian nature. Indeed, in contrast to what is observed in any two-body-coupling model, in proximity of the transition the ground state exhibits a divergent coskewness, i.e., quantum correlations that cannot be captured within semiclassical and Gaussian approximations. Furthermore, we demonstrate the robustness of our findings by including dissipative processes in the model, showing that the steady-state of the system inherits from the ground states the most prominent features of the transition.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Continuous-time dynamics and error scaling of noisy highly-entangling quantum circuits

We investigate the continuous-time dynamics of highly-entangling intermediate-scale quantum circuits in the presence of dissipation and decoherence. By compressing the Hilbert space to a time-dependent "corner" subspace that supports faithful representations of the density matrix, we simulate a noisy quantum Fourier transform processor with up to 21 qubits. Our method is efficient to compute with a controllable accuracy the time evolution of intermediate-scale open quantum systems with moderate entropy, while taking into account microscopic dissipative processes rather than relying on digital error models. The circuit size reached in our simulations allows to extract the scaling behaviour of error propagation with the dissipation rates and the number of qubits. Moreover, we show that depending on the dissipative mechanisms at play, the choice of input state has a strong impact on the performance of the quantum algorithm.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Theoretical methods for ultrastrong light-matter interactions

This article reviews theoretical methods developed in the last decade to understand cavity quantum electrodynamics in the ultrastrong-coupling regime, where the strength of the light-matter interaction becomes comparable to the photon frequency. Along with profound modifications of fundamental quantum optical effects giving rise to a rich phenomenology, this regime introduces significant theoretical challenges. One of the most important is the break-down of the rotating-wave approximation which neglects all non-resonant terms in light-matter interaction Hamiltonians. Consequently, a large part of the quantum optical theoretical framework has to be revisited in order to accurately account for all interaction terms in this regime. We give in this article a broad overview of the recent progress, ranging from analytical estimate of ground-state properties to proper derivations of master equations and computation of photodetection signals. For each aspect of the theory, the basic principles of the methods are illustrated on paradigmatic models such as quantum Rabi and spin-boson models. In this spirit, most of the article is devoted to effective models, relevant for the various experimental platforms in which the ultrastrong coupling has been reached, such as semiconductor microcavities and superconducting circuits. The validity of these models is discussed in the last part of the article, where we address recent debates on fundamental issues related to gauge invariance in the ultrastrong-coupling regime.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Entanglement dynamics in dissipative photonic Mott insulators

We theoretically investigate the entanglement dynamics in photonic Mott insulators in the presence of particle losses and dephasing. We explore two configurations where entanglement is generated following the injection or extraction of a photon in the central site of a chain of cavity resonators. We study the entanglement negativity of two-site reduced density matrices as a function of time and inter-site distance. Our findings show that in spite of particle losses the quantum entanglement propagation exhibits a ballistic character with propagation speeds related to the differerent quasiparticles that are involved in the dynamics, namely photonic doublons and holons respectively. Our analysis reveals that photon dissipation has a strikingly asymmetric behavior in the two configurations with a much more dramatic role on the holon entanglement propagation than for the doublon case.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2019

Observing the Spectral Collapse of Two-Photon Interaction Models

Until very recently, two-photon interaction processes have been considered only as arising from second- or higher-order effects in driven systems, and so limited to extremely small coupling strengths. However, a variety of novel physical phenomena emerges in the strong and ultrastrong coupling regimes. Strikingly, for a critical value of the coupling strength the discrete spectrum collapses into a continuous band. In this extended abstract, we discuss recent proposals to implement genuine two-photon interactions in an undriven solid-state system, in the framework of circuit QED. In particular, we review counterintuitive spectral features of two-photon interaction models and we show how the onset of the spectral collapse can be observed in feasible scattering experiments.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2019

Universal spectral features of ultrastrongly coupled systems

We identify universal properties of the low-energy subspace of a wide class of quantum optical models in the ultrastrong coupling limit, where the coupling strength dominates over all other energy scales in the system. We show that the symmetry of the light-matter interaction is at the origin of a two-fold degeneracy in the spectrum. We prove analytically this result for bounded Hamiltonians and extend it to a class of models with unbounded operators. As a consequence, we show that the emergence of superradiant phases previously investigated in the context of critical phenomena, is a general property of the ultrastrong coupling limit. The set of models we consider encompasses different scenarios of possible interplay between critical behaviour and superradiance.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2018

Ultrastrong coupling regime of non-dipolar light-matter interactions

We present a circuit-QED scheme which allows to reach the ultrastrong coupling regime of a nondipolar interaction between a single qubit and a quantum resonator. We show that the system Hamiltonian is well approximated by a two-photon quantum Rabi model and propose a simple scattering experiment to probe its fundamental properties. In particular, we identify a driving scheme that reveals the change in selection rules characterizing the breakdown of the rotating-wave approximation and the transition from strong to ultrastrong two-photon interactions. Finally, we show that a frequency crowding in a narrow spectral region is observable in the output fluoresce spectrum as the coupling strength approaches the collapse point, paving the way to the direct observation of the onset of the spectral collapse in a solid-state device.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Metastability in the driven-dissipative Rabi model

We explore the long-time dynamics of Rabi model in a driven-dissipative setting and show that, as the atom-cavity coupling strength becomes larger than the cavity frequency, a new time scale emerges. This time scale, much larger than the natural relaxation time of the atom and the cavity, leads to long-lived metastable states susceptible to being observed experimentally. By applying a Floquet-Liouville approach to the time-dependent master equation, we systematically investigate the set of possible metastable states. We find that the properties of the metastable states can differ drastically from those of the steady state and relate these properties to the energy spectrum of the Rabi Hamiltonian.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Fate of photon blockade in the deep strong coupling regime

We investigate the photon emission properties of the driven-dissipative Rabi model in the so-called ultrastrong and deep strong coupling regimes, where the atom-cavity coupling rate $g$ becomes comparable or larger than the cavity frequency $ω_c$. By solving numerically the master equation in the dressed-state basis, we compute the output field correlation functions in the steady-state for a wide range of coupling rates. We find that, as the atom-cavity coupling strength increases, the system undergoes multiple transitions in the photon statistics. In particular, a first sharp anti-bunching to bunching transition, occurring at $g\sim0.45ω_c$, leading to the breakdown of the photon blockade due to the counter-rotating terms, is shown to be the consequence of a parity shift in the energy spectrum. A subsequent revival of the photon blockade and the emergence of the quasi-coherent statistics, for even larger coupling rates, are attributed to an interplay between the nonlinearity in the energy spectrum and the transition rates between the dressed states.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Truncated correlation hierarchy schemes for driven-dissipative multimode quantum systems

We present a method to describe driven-dissipative multi-mode systems by considering a truncated hierarchy of equations for the correlation functions. We consider two hierarchy truncation schemes with a global cutoff on the correlation order, which is the sum of the exponents of the operators involved in the correlation functions: a 'hard' cutoff corresponding to an expansion around the vacuum, which applies to a regime where the number of excitations per site is small; a 'soft' cutoff which corresponds to an expansion around coherent states, which can be applied for large excitation numbers per site. This approach is applied to describe the bunching-antibunching transition in the driven-dissipative Bose-Hubbard model for photonic systems. The results have been successfully benchmarked by comparison with calculations based on the corner-space renormalization method in 1D and 2D systems. The regime of validity and strengths of the present truncation methods are critically discussed.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2014

Bose-Hubbard Model: Relation Between Driven-Dissipative Steady-States and Equilibrium Quantum Phases

We present analytical solutions for the mean-field master equation of the driven-dissipative Bose-Hubbard model for cavity photons, in the limit of both weak pumping and weak dissipation. Instead of pure Mott insulator states, we find statistical mixtures with the same second-order coherence as a Fock state with n photons, but a mean photon number of n/2. These mixed states occur when n pump photons have the same energy as n interacting photons inside the nonlinear cavity and survive up to a critical tunneling coupling strength, above which a crossover to classical coherent state takes place. We also explain the origin of both antibunching and superbunching predicted by P-representation mean-field theory at higher pumping and dissipation. In particular, we show that the strongly correlated region of the associated phase diagram cannot be described within the semiclassical Gross-Pitaevski approach.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Steady-state phases and tunneling-induced instabilities in the driven-dissipative Bose-Hubbard model

We determine the steady-state phases of a driven-dissipative Bose-Hubbard model, describing, e.g., an array of coherently pumped nonlinear cavities with a finite photon lifetime. Within a mean-field master equation approach using exact quantum solutions for the one-site problem, we show that the system exhibits a tunneling-induced transition between monostable and bistable phases. We characterize the corresponding quantum correlations, highlighting the essential differences with respect to the equilibrium case. We also find collective excitations with a flat energy-momentum dispersion over the entire Brillouin zone that trigger modulational instabilities at specific wavevectors.

cond-mat.other↗