Letter abstract
Nature Physics 5, 105 - 109 (2009)
Published online: 14 December 2008 | Corrected online: 15 December 2008 | doi:10.1038/nphys1154
Subject Categories: Quantum physics | Condensed-matter physics
Nonlinear response of the vacuum Rabi resonance
Lev S. Bishop1, J. M. Chow1, Jens Koch1, A. A. Houck1, M. H. Devoret1, E. Thuneberg2, S. M. Girvin1 & R. J. Schoelkopf1
On the level of single atoms and photons, the coupling between atoms and the electromagnetic field is typically very weak. By using a cavity to confine the field, the strength of this interaction can be increased by many orders of magnitude, to a point where it dominates over any dissipative process. This strong-coupling regime of cavity quantum electrodynamics1, 2 has been reached for real atoms in optical cavities3, and for artificial atoms in circuit quantum electrodynamics4 and quantum dot systems5, 6. A signature of strong coupling is the splitting of the cavity transmission peak into a pair of resolvable peaks when a single resonant atom is placed inside the cavity, an effect known as vacuum Rabi splitting. The circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture is ideally suited for going beyond this linear-response effect. Here, we show that increasing the drive power results in two unique nonlinear features in the transmitted heterodyne signal: the supersplitting of each vacuum Rabi peak into a doublet and the appearance of extra peaks with the characteristic 
spacing of the Jaynes–Cummings ladder. These findings constitute direct evidence for the coupling between the quantized microwave field and the anharmonic spectrum of a superconducting qubit acting as an artificial atom.
- Departments of Physics and Applied Physics, Yale University, PO Box 208120, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA
- Department of Physical Sciences, University of Oulu, PO Box 3000, FI-90014, Finland
Correspondence to: R. J. Schoelkopf1 e-mail: robert.schoelkopf@yale.edu
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