Dynamical Casimir effect entangles artificial atoms

The phenomenon of quantum fluctuations, consisting in virtual particles emerging from vacuum, is central to understanding important effects in nature – for instance, the Lamb shift of atomic spectra and the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron. It was also suggested that a mirror undergoing relativistic motion could convert virtual into real photons. This phenomenon, denominated dynamical Casimir effect (DCE), has been observed in recent experiments with superconducting circuits. Here, we show that the physics underlying the DCE may generate multipartite quantum correlations. To achieve it, we propose a circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) scenario involving superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs), cavities, and superconducting qubits, also called artificial atoms. Our results predict the generation of highly entangled states for two and three superconducting qubits in different geometric configurations with realistic parameters. This proposal paves the way for a scalable method of multipartite entanglement generation in cavity networks through dynamical Casimir physics.