2025/09/05 by Louis Garbe, Garbe, Louis, Peter Rabl +1
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.quant-gas #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2509.05290
published as Phys. Rev. A 114, 013723 (2026) · 12 pages, 10 figures. Comments welcome!
arxiv created 2026/03/27 · arxiv updated 2026/07/30
We investigate the dynamics of a lasing system driven by a current of bosonic (quasi-)particles via a dissipative three-mode mixing process. A semi-classical analysis of this system predicts distinct dynamical regimes, where both the cavity mode and the gain medium can undergo lasing transitions. Of particular interest is an intermediate self-pulsing phase that exhibits the characteristics of an excitable system and converts random input signals into separated, quasi-periodic pulses at the output. By performing exact Monte-Carlo simulations, we extend this analysis into the quantum regime and show that despite being dominated by huge bosonic particle number fluctuations, this effect -- reminiscent of coherence resonance -- survives even for rather low average photon numbers. Our system thus represents an intriguing model of an excitable quantum many-body system, with practical relevance for quantum detectors or autonomous quantum machines. As an illustration, we discuss the realization of this system with superconducting quantum circuits and its application as a number-resolved avalanche detector for microwave photons.