Abstract

We report on an emergent dynamical phase of a strongly-correlated light–matter system, which is governed by dimerization processes due to short-range and long-range two-body interactions. The dynamical phase is characterized by the spontaneous symmetry breaking of the translational invariance and appears in an intermediate regime of light–matter interaction between the resonant and dispersive cases. We describe the quench dynamics from an initial state with integer filling factor of a finite-sized array of coupled resonators, each doped with a two-level system, in a closed and open scenario. The closed system dynamics has an effective Hilbert space description that allows us to demonstrate and characterize the emergent dynamical phase via time-averaged quantities, such as fluctuations in the number of polaritons per site and linear entropy. We prove that the dynamical phase is governed by intrinsic two-body interactions and the lattice topological structure. In the open system dynamics, we show evidence about the robustness of dynamical dimerization processes under loss mechanisms. Our findings can be used to determine the light–matter detuning range, where the dimerized phase emerges.