Elvia Colella, Innsbruck University

Open Quantum-System Simulation of Faraday's Induction Law via Dynamical Instabilities

We propose a novel type of cavity-QED set up to study the physics of dynamical gauge potentials. Atomic tunneling along opposite directions in the two legs of the ladder is mediated by photon scattering from transverse pump lasers to two distinct cavity modes. The steady-state atomic motion along the legs of the ladder leads either to a pure chiral current, screening the induced dynamical magnetic field as in the Meissner effect, or generates simultaneously chiral and particle currents. For sufficiently strongpump the system enters into a dynamically unstable regime exhibiting limit-cycle and period-doubled oscillations. An electromotive force is induced in this dynamical regime as expected from an interpretation based on Faraday’s law of induction for the time-dependent synthetic magnetic flux.