Signatures of topological quantum phase transitions in driven and dissipative qubit-arrays

Abstract: We study photonic signatures of symmetry broken and topological phases in a driven, dissipative circuit QED realization of spin-1/2 chains. Specifically, we consider the transverse-field XY model and a dual model with 3-spin interactions. The former has a ferromagnetic and a paramagnetic phase, while the latter features, in addition, a symmetry protected topological phase. Using the method of third quantization, we calculate the non-equilibrium steady-state of the open spin chains for arbitrary system sizes and temperatures. We find that the bi-local correlation function of the spins at both ends of the chain provides a sensitive measure for both symmetry-breaking and topological phase transitions of the systems, but no universal means to distinguish between the two types of transitions. Both models have equivalent representations in terms of free Majorana fermions, which host zero, one and two topological Majorana end modes in the paramagnetic, ferromagnetic, and symmetry protected topological phases, respectively. The correlation function we study retains its bi-local character in the fermionic representation, so that our results are equally applicable to the fermionic models in their own right. We propose a photonic realization of the dissipative transverse-field XY model in a tunable setup, where an array of superconducting transmon qubits is coupled at both ends to a photonic microwave circuit.