Fate of photon blockade in the deep strong coupling regime

Abstract: We investigate the photon emission properties of the driven-dissipative Rabi model in the so-called ultrastrong and deep strong coupling regimes, where the atom-cavity coupling rate $g$ becomes comparable or larger than the cavity frequency $\omega_c$. By solving numerically the master equation in the dressed-state basis, we compute the output field correlation functions in the steady-state for a wide range of coupling rates. We find that, as the atom-cavity coupling strength increases, the system undergoes multiple transitions in the photon statistics. In particular, a first sharp anti-bunching to bunching transition, occurring at $g\sim0.45\omega_c$, leading to the breakdown of the photon blockade due to the counter-rotating terms, is shown to be the consequence of a parity shift in the energy spectrum. A subsequent revival of the photon blockade and the emergence of the quasi-coherent statistics, for even larger coupling rates, are attributed to an interplay between the nonlinearity in the energy spectrum and the transition rates between the dressed states.