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Dissipation and non-thermal states in cryogenic cavities

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Dissipation and non-thermal states in cryogenic cavities

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AbstractWe study the properties of photons in a cryogenic cavity, made by cryo-cooled mirrors surrounded by a room temperature environment. We model such a system as a multimode cavity coupled to two thermal reservoirs at different temperatures. Using a Lindblad master equation approach, we derive the photon distribution and the statistical properties of the cavity modes, finding an overall non-thermal state described by a mode-dependent effective temperature. We also calculate the dissipation rates arising from the interaction of the cavity field with the external environment and the mirrors, relating such rates to measurable macroscopic quantities. These results provide a simple theory to calculate the dissipative properties and the effective temperature of a cavity coupled to different thermal reservoirs, offering potential pathways for engineering dissipations and photon statistics in cavity settings.Featured image: Sketch of a cryogenic cavity with cold mirrors at temperature $T_m$, surrounded by a warm environment at temperature $T_e$. The cavity photon modes interact with both mirrors and environment.Popular summaryWhen we imagine an optical cavity cooled to very low temperatures, we think that the light trapped inside it is also perfectly cold and quiet. In reality, things can be more subtle. In this work, we study what happens to photons inside a cryogenic optical cavity whose mirrors are cooled to very low temperature, but which is still surrounded by a much warmer external environment. Because photons can leak out of the cavity or be absorbed by the mirrors, the light inside is constantly exchanging energy with two different heat baths at different temperatures. This places the cavity in a genuinely non-equilibrium situation. Using a standard quantum description of dissipation, we show that the photons inside the cavity do not settle into an ordinary thermal state. Instead, each cavity mode behaves as if it had its own “effective temperature,” which depends on the photon frequency and on the coupling to the cold mirrors and the warm environment. As a result, the cavity hosts a structured, non-thermal distribution of light. We connect the microscopic description to measurable, macroscopic properties of real cavities, such as mirror conductivity, reflectivity, and electromagnetic mode profiles. This makes the theory directly applicable to experimental systems, including Fabry–Perot and nanoplasmonic cavities. These results provide a practical framework to understand and engineer dissipation and thermal effects in cryogenic cavity, with implications for low-temperature experiments and cavity-based quantum technologies.► BibTeX data@article{Bacciconi2026dissipationnon, doi = {10.22331/q-2026-01-22-1983}, url = {https://doi.org/10.22331/q-2026-01-22-1983}, title = {Dissipation and non-thermal states in cryogenic cavities}, author = {Bacciconi, Zeno and Piccitto, Giulia and Verga, Alessandro Maria and Falci, Giuseppe and Paladino, Elisabetta and Chiriac{\`{o}}, Giuliano}, journal = {{Quantum}}, issn = {2521-327X}, publisher = {{Verein zur F{\"{o}}rderung des Open Access Publizierens in den Quantenwissenschaften}}, volume = {10}, pages = {1983}, month = jan, year = {2026} }► References [1] Takashi Oka and Hideo Aoki. ``Photovoltaic Hall effect in graphene''. Physical Review B 79, 081406 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.79.081406 [2] N. Goldman and J. Dalibard. ``Periodically Driven Quantum Systems: Effective Hamiltonians and Engineered Gauge Fields''. Physical Review X 4, 031027 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.4.031027 [3] Dominic V. Else, Bela Bauer, and Chetan Nayak. ``Floquet Time Crystals''.

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Springer Berlin Heidelberg. (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-28574-8Cited byCould not fetch Crossref cited-by data during last attempt 2026-01-22 11:08:54: cURL error 28: Operation timed out after 10001 milliseconds with 0 bytes received Could not fetch ADS cited-by data during last attempt 2026-01-22 11:09:04: No response from ADS or unable to decode the received json data when getting the list of citing works.This Paper is published in Quantum under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. Copyright remains with the original copyright holders such as the authors or their institutions. AbstractWe study the properties of photons in a cryogenic cavity, made by cryo-cooled mirrors surrounded by a room temperature environment. We model such a system as a multimode cavity coupled to two thermal reservoirs at different temperatures. Using a Lindblad master equation approach, we derive the photon distribution and the statistical properties of the cavity modes, finding an overall non-thermal state described by a mode-dependent effective temperature. We also calculate the dissipation rates arising from the interaction of the cavity field with the external environment and the mirrors, relating such rates to measurable macroscopic quantities. These results provide a simple theory to calculate the dissipative properties and the effective temperature of a cavity coupled to different thermal reservoirs, offering potential pathways for engineering dissipations and photon statistics in cavity settings.Featured image: Sketch of a cryogenic cavity with cold mirrors at temperature $T_m$, surrounded by a warm environment at temperature $T_e$. The cavity photon modes interact with both mirrors and environment.Popular summaryWhen we imagine an optical cavity cooled to very low temperatures, we think that the light trapped inside it is also perfectly cold and quiet. In reality, things can be more subtle. In this work, we study what happens to photons inside a cryogenic optical cavity whose mirrors are cooled to very low temperature, but which is still surrounded by a much warmer external environment. Because photons can leak out of the cavity or be absorbed by the mirrors, the light inside is constantly exchanging energy with two different heat baths at different temperatures. This places the cavity in a genuinely non-equilibrium situation. Using a standard quantum description of dissipation, we show that the photons inside the cavity do not settle into an ordinary thermal state. Instead, each cavity mode behaves as if it had its own “effective temperature,” which depends on the photon frequency and on the coupling to the cold mirrors and the warm environment. As a result, the cavity hosts a structured, non-thermal distribution of light. We connect the microscopic description to measurable, macroscopic properties of real cavities, such as mirror conductivity, reflectivity, and electromagnetic mode profiles. This makes the theory directly applicable to experimental systems, including Fabry–Perot and nanoplasmonic cavities. These results provide a practical framework to understand and engineer dissipation and thermal effects in cryogenic cavity, with implications for low-temperature experiments and cavity-based quantum technologies.► BibTeX data@article{Bacciconi2026dissipationnon, doi = {10.22331/q-2026-01-22-1983}, url = {https://doi.org/10.22331/q-2026-01-22-1983}, title = {Dissipation and non-thermal states in cryogenic cavities}, author = {Bacciconi, Zeno and Piccitto, Giulia and Verga, Alessandro Maria and Falci, Giuseppe and Paladino, Elisabetta and Chiriac{\`{o}}, Giuliano}, journal = {{Quantum}}, issn = {2521-327X}, publisher = {{Verein zur F{\"{o}}rderung des Open Access Publizierens in den Quantenwissenschaften}}, volume = {10}, pages = {1983}, month = jan, year = {2026} }► References [1] Takashi Oka and Hideo Aoki. ``Photovoltaic Hall effect in graphene''. Physical Review B 79, 081406 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.79.081406 [2] N. Goldman and J. Dalibard. ``Periodically Driven Quantum Systems: Effective Hamiltonians and Engineered Gauge Fields''. Physical Review X 4, 031027 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.4.031027 [3] Dominic V. Else, Bela Bauer, and Chetan Nayak. ``Floquet Time Crystals''.

Springer Berlin Heidelberg. (2004). url: https://link.springer.com/book/9783540223016. https://link.springer.com/book/9783540223016 [72] Marlan O. Scully and M. Suhail Zubairy. ``Quantum Optics''.

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Dissipation and non-thermal states in cryogenic cavities

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