Light-Matter Entanglement in Real-Time Nuclear-Electronic Orbital Polariton Dynamics

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Welman, Millan F., Li, Tao E., Hammes-Schiffer, Sharon
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Welman, Millan F.
Li, Tao E.
Hammes-Schiffer, Sharon
author_facet Welman, Millan F.
Li, Tao E.
Hammes-Schiffer, Sharon
contents Molecular polaritons are hybrid light-matter states that enable the exploration of potential cavity-modified chemistry. The development of dynamical, first-principles approaches for simulating molecular polaritons is important for understanding their origins and properties. Herein, we present a hierarchy of first-principles methods to simulate the real-time dynamics of molecular polaritons in the strong coupling regime. These methods are based on real-time time-dependent density functional theory (RT-TDDFT) and the corresponding real-time nuclear-electronic orbital (RT-NEO) approach, in which specified nuclei are treated quantum mechanically on the same level as the electrons. The hierarchy spans semiclassical, mean-field-quantum, and full-quantum approaches to simulate polariton dynamics under both electronic strong coupling and vibrational strong coupling. In the semiclassical approaches, the cavity mode is treated classically, whereas in the full-quantum approaches, the cavity mode is treated quantum mechanically with propagation of a joint molecule-mode density matrix. The semiclassical and full-quantum approaches produce virtually identical Rabi splittings and polariton peak locations for the systems studied. However, the full-quantum approaches allow exploration of molecule-mode quantum entanglement in the real-time dynamics. Although the degree of light-matter entanglement is relatively small in the systems considered, the oscillations of the von Neumann entropy reveal an entanglement Rabi splitting that differs from the Rabi splitting computed from the time-dependent dipole moment. These results suggest that a classical treatment of the cavity mode may provide an excellent description of polariton dynamics for macroscopic observables such as the Rabi splitting, but novel physics may be detectable by considering molecule-mode entanglement.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_06490
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Light-Matter Entanglement in Real-Time Nuclear-Electronic Orbital Polariton Dynamics
Welman, Millan F.
Li, Tao E.
Hammes-Schiffer, Sharon
Chemical Physics
Molecular polaritons are hybrid light-matter states that enable the exploration of potential cavity-modified chemistry. The development of dynamical, first-principles approaches for simulating molecular polaritons is important for understanding their origins and properties. Herein, we present a hierarchy of first-principles methods to simulate the real-time dynamics of molecular polaritons in the strong coupling regime. These methods are based on real-time time-dependent density functional theory (RT-TDDFT) and the corresponding real-time nuclear-electronic orbital (RT-NEO) approach, in which specified nuclei are treated quantum mechanically on the same level as the electrons. The hierarchy spans semiclassical, mean-field-quantum, and full-quantum approaches to simulate polariton dynamics under both electronic strong coupling and vibrational strong coupling. In the semiclassical approaches, the cavity mode is treated classically, whereas in the full-quantum approaches, the cavity mode is treated quantum mechanically with propagation of a joint molecule-mode density matrix. The semiclassical and full-quantum approaches produce virtually identical Rabi splittings and polariton peak locations for the systems studied. However, the full-quantum approaches allow exploration of molecule-mode quantum entanglement in the real-time dynamics. Although the degree of light-matter entanglement is relatively small in the systems considered, the oscillations of the von Neumann entropy reveal an entanglement Rabi splitting that differs from the Rabi splitting computed from the time-dependent dipole moment. These results suggest that a classical treatment of the cavity mode may provide an excellent description of polariton dynamics for macroscopic observables such as the Rabi splitting, but novel physics may be detectable by considering molecule-mode entanglement.
title Light-Matter Entanglement in Real-Time Nuclear-Electronic Orbital Polariton Dynamics
topic Chemical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.06490