Dynamics of spin-momentum entanglement from superradiant phase transitions

Exploring operational regimes of many-body cavity QED with multi-level atoms remains an exciting research frontier for their enhanced storage capabilities of intra-level quantum correlations. In this work, we propose an extension of a prototypical many-body cavity QED experiment from a two to a four-level description by optically addressing a combination of momentum and spin states of the ultracold atoms in the cavity. The resulting model comprises a pair of Dicke Hamiltonians constructed from pseudo-spin operators, effectively capturing two intertwined superradiant phase transitions. The phase diagram reveals regions featuring weak and strong entangled states of spin and momentum atomic degrees of freedom. These states exhibit different dynamical responses, ranging from slow to fast relaxation, with the added option of persistent entanglement temporal oscillations. We discuss the role of cavity losses in steering the system dynamics into such entangled states and propose a readout scheme that leverages different light polarizations within the cavity. Our work paves the way to connect the rich variety of non-equilibrium phase transitions that occur in many-body cavity QED to the buildup of quantum correlations in systems with multi-level atom descriptions.