Non-linear steady states of subwavelength atomic arrays at low light intensities and beyond mean field

Abstract

Subwavelength atomic arrays constitute a novel light-matter platform with long-range interactions and collective dissipation that can host novel non-equilibrium many-body states. Here we investigate their steady states under coherent driving. While in the low-drive intensity regime they have often been described in terms of linear, non-interacting theories, we show that such a description is inadequate in subwavelength regimes. There, we point out that non-linearities can have large effects down to a vanishing drive intensity in the limit of large number of atoms. Then we investigate the role of fluctuations beyond Gutzwiller mean-field theory within a Dynamical Mean Field Theory (DMFT) approach in the regime of intermediate drive intensity. We show that these have a dramatic impact on the steady-state phase diagram, including suppressing a range of non-homogeneous instabilities and phases predicted in mean-field theory.