Quantum Wire Coupled to Light

Experimental advances in cavity QED are raising the prospect of using light to probe quantum materials beyond the linear response regime. The capability to access quantum coherent phenomena would significantly advance the field. However, theoretical work on many-body systems coupled to light in the quantum coherent regime has been select. Here, we investigate the radiative properties of a finite-sized quantum wire in a microwave cavity. Examples of quantum wires include single-walled carbon nanotubes, a key experimental system in the field of nano-optics and plasmonics. We find that, for a variety of excited states, the repeated emission of photons results in the generation of many-body quantum entanglement. This leads to an increase in the rate at which subsequent photons are emitted, an example of Dicke superradiance. On the other hand, Pauli blocking tends to reduce this effect. Bosonization, the description of the excitations of a one-dimensional electron system as a gas of bosons, is found to be a powerful theoretical tool in this context. Its application means that many of our results generalize to wires with strong electron-electron interactions. The quantum wire thus represents a new platform to realize Dicke-model physics that does not rely on the various fine tunings necessary in traditional realizations involving many spatially isolated emitters. More broadly, this work demonstrates how quantum entanglement can be generated and measured in a many-body system. Published by the American Physical Society 2024