Dissipative phase transitions: Independent versus collective decay and spin squeezing

Abstract: We study the XY model with infinite-range interactions (Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model) in the presence of dissipation from spontaneous decay. We show that independent and collective decay lead to qualitatively different phase transitions of the steady state, even though the phase boundary is the same. Independent decay leads to a second-order phase transition to a ferromagnet, while collective decay leads to a first-order transition to a time-dependent oscillatory phase. Then we show that the addition of a drive leads to infinite spin squeezing for collective decay in the thermodynamic limit. Our results can be experimentally seen in trapped-ion and cavity-QED experiments.