Simulating cavity QED with spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates revisited

Abstract Simulating cavity quantum electrodynamics in synthetic platforms offers a route to studying light--matter physics without real photons. We reassess the frequently invoked analogy between harmonically trapped, spin--orbit-coupled atoms and the quantum Rabi and Dicke models, with particular emphasis on squeezing and entanglement. A single non-interacting atom realizes the quantum Rabi Hamiltonian exactly, up to elementary spin and phase-space rotations. For $N$ non-interacting atoms, however, the center-of-mass mode is only one member of a complete orthonormal set containing $N-1$ relative modes. We prove that, after all modes are included, the spin--spin terms generated by the collective mode cancel exactly against those generated by the relative modes. Equivalently, the original Hamiltonian is a sum of independent one-particle Hamiltonians and therefore cannot create interparticle entanglement from a separable state. Contact interactions invalidate this cancellation but do not remove the relative modes or turn the exact many-body Hamiltonian into a Dicke model. A one-mode Dicke description can arise only as a controlled low-energy approximation after all relevant relative excitations have been shown to be spectrally suppressed. We discuss this distinction together with experimental scales, finite temperature, and possible mode-selection strategies. We also distinguish the single-particle interference underlying density fringes from the interaction-stabilized stripe supersolid observed in many-body condensates.