Dissipation across the ultrastrong-coupling regime of nanomechanical quantum Rabi systems
Mechanical resonators ultrastrongly coupled to quantum two-level systems provide a promising route towards mechanical qubits by introducing significant anharmonicity to the mechanical modes, particularly in the slow-oscillator regime. Although the resulting hybrid system is well described by the quantum Rabi model, a consistent treatment of dissipation remains challenging across the broad parameter space routinely probed in current nanotube electromechanical devices. Here, we investigate dissipation in the open quantum Rabi model using a Born-Markov framework based on the slowly varying bath spectrum approximation, yielding a Lindblad master equation applicable far beyond conventional descriptions while recovering them in their respective limits. Using this framework, we analyze experimentally accessible observables across this parameter space. As the secular approximation breaks down, phonon blockade progressively washes out. Our approach remains valid in this regime, enabling a quantitative description of the continuous evolution of phonon blockade with coupling strength and dissipation. At finite temperature, we find a suppression of the temperature-induced increase of coherence decay rate for weak anharmonicity. Under driving, our approach remains applicable to substantially stronger perturbations than conventional dressed-state master equations and shows that an apparently classical observable can coexist with Wigner negativity. We further capture the weakly anharmonic regime arising from finite detuning in the double-quantum dot. These results establish a unified description of dissipation from weakly anharmonic operating regimes to the strongly anharmonic mechanical-qubit regime and provide experimentally relevant predictions for ultrastrong electromechanical systems.