Abstract

Interaction of the vacuum field of an optical mode with an electronic two-level system can drive non-perturbative light-matter dynamics, resulting in an exotic quantum ground state containing a sizeable population of virtual excitations. In the deep-strong coupling (DSC) regime, where the Rabi frequency, Ω_R, exceeds the eigen-frequencies of the coupled systems, this extreme ground state can result in spectacular effects of cavity-QED, such as the expected release of the virtual photon ground state population as vacuum radiation by non-adiabatic modulation of the coupling mechanism [1,2]. However, for resonant coupling of two single modes [3], the finite oscillator strength of resonant electronic excitation sets a natural limit to the achievable coupling strength, hindering further exploration of this exciting field.

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