Synthetic spin-orbit coupling and topological polaritons in Janeys-Cummings lattices

The interaction between a photon and a qubit in the Janeys-Cummings (JC) model generates a kind of quasiparticle called polariton. While they are widely used in quantum optics, difficulties in engineering controllable coupling of them severely limit their applications to simulate spinful quantum systems. Here we show that, in the superconducting quantum circuit context, polariton states in the single-excitation manifold of a JC lattice can be used to simulate a spin-1/2 system, based on which tunable synthetic spin-orbit coupling and novel topological polaritons can be generated and explored. The lattice is formed by a sequence of coupled transmission line resonators, each of which is connected to a transmon qubit. Synthetic spin-orbit coupling and effective Zeeman field of the polariton can both be tuned by modulating the coupling strength between neighbouring resonators, allowing for the realization of a large variety of polaritonic topological semimetal bands. Methods for detecting the polaritonic topological edge states and topological invariants are also proposed. Therefore, our work suggests that the JC lattice is a versatile platform for exploring spinful topological states of matter, which may inspire developments of topologically protected quantum optical and information processing devices.