Colloquium: Stimulating uncertainty: Amplifying the quantum vacuum with superconducting circuits

By Paul D. Nation, J. Johansson, Miles P. Blencowe, Franco Nori. 2011

433 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The ability to generate particles from the quantum vacuum is one of the most pro- found consequences of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Although the significance of vacuum fluctuations can be seen throughout physics, the experimental realization of vacuum amplification effects has until now been limited to a few cases. Superconducting circuit devices, driven by the goal to achieve a viable quantum computer, may soon be able to realize the elusive verification of the dynamical Casimir effect and analogue Hawking radiation. This article describes several mechanisms for generating photons from the quantum vacuum and emphasizes their connection to the well-known parametric amplifier from quantum optics. Discussed in detail is the possible realization of each mechanism, or its analogue, in superconducting circuit systems. The ability to selectively engineer these circuit devices highlights the relationship between the various amplification mechanisms.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c34662683be88b61ab9168fa635fcb86b958199f

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. Franco Nori
2. Sahel Ashhab
3. I. Georgescu
4. J. You
5. Yu-xi Liu
6. Adam Miranowicz
7. Z. Xiang
8. Anton Frisk Kockum

In Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

1. Sahel Ashhab
2. Z. Xiang
3. I. Georgescu
4. J. You
5. Franco Nori
6. Anton Frisk Kockum

Citations in the corpus

• Superconducting quantum computing: a review (2020, background): “[28] Nation, P.”
• Hybrid quantum circuits: Superconducting circuits interacting with other quantum systems (2012, background): “…the lowest two levels of a SC circuit for implementing quantum computing and simulation (Buluta and Nori, 2009; Burkard et al., 2004; Clarke and Wilhelm, 2008; Georgescu and Nori, 2011; Makhlin et al., 2001; Nation et al., 2012; Wendin and Shumeiko, 2007; You and Nori, 2005, 2011; Zagoskin, 2011).”
• Quantum Simulation (2013, background): “…2005), ions (Horstmann et al., 2010) and superconducting circuits (Nation et al., 2009), exciton-polariton superfluids in semiconductors (Gerace and Carusotto, 2012) or even with ultrashort pulses of light in microstructured optical fibers (Philbin et al., 2008) (see also (Nation et al., 2012)).”
• Microwave photonics with superconducting quantum circuits (2017, background): “could potentially also be modeled with SQUIDs in waveguides [135]).”
• Fifty Years of the Dynamical Casimir Effect (2020, neutral): “A detailed review of this approach was given in [31].”
• Dynamical Casimir effect in a Josephson metamaterial (2011, background): “gravitational field at event horizons results in black hole evaporation (Hawking radiation), the acceleration of an observer in the Minkowski vacuum results in the detection of particles (Unruh effect), and sudden changes in the boundary conditions of electromagnetic field modes or in the equations ”
• Quantum feedback: theory, experiments, and applications (2014, background): “This is called parametric amplification because it amplifies one quadrature, and becauseω is a ‘‘parameter’’ in the Hamiltonian [212].”