The Dicke Hamiltonian describes the simplest quantum system with atoms interacting with photons: $N$ two-level atoms inside a perfectly reflecting cavity, which allows only one electromagnetic mode. It has also been successfully employed to describe superconducting circuits that behave as artificial atoms coupled to a resonator. The system exhibits a transition to a superradiant phase at zero temperature. When the interaction strength reaches its critical value, both the number of photons and atoms in excited states in the cavity, together with their fluctuations, exhibit a sudden increase from zero. By employing symmetry-adapted coherent states, it is shown that these properties scale with the number of atoms, their reported divergences at the critical point represent the limit when this number goes to infinity, and, in this limit, they remain divergent in the superradiant phase. Analytical expressions are presented for all observables of interest, for any number of atoms. Comparisons with exact numerical solutions strongly support the results.

• Received 17 December 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.83.051601