Emergence and control of complex behaviors in driven systems of interacting qubits with dissipation

Abstract Progress in the creation of large-scale, artificial quantum coherent structures demands the investigation of their nonequilibrium dynamics when strong interactions, even between remote parts, are non-perturbative. Analysis of multiparticle quantum correlations in a large system in the presence of decoherence and external driving is especially topical. Still, the scaling behavior of dynamics and related emergent phenomena are not yet well understood. We investigate how the dynamics of a driven system of several quantum elements (e.g., qubits or Rydberg atoms) changes with increasing number of elements. Surprisingly, a two-element system exhibits chaotic behaviors. For larger system sizes, a highly stochastic, far from equilibrium, hyperchaotic regime emerges. Its complexity systematically scales with the size of the system, proportionally to the number of elements. Finally, we demonstrate that these chaotic dynamics can be efficiently controlled by a periodic driving field. The insights provided by our results indicate the possibility of a reduced description for the behavior of a large quantum system in terms of the transitions between its qualitatively different dynamical regimes. These transitions are controlled by a relatively small number of parameters, which may prove useful in the design, characterization, and control of large artificial quantum structures.