Nucleation of superfluid-light domains in a quenched dynamics*

Strong correlation effects emerge from light-matter interactions in coupled resonator arrays, such as the Mott-insulator to the superfluid phase transition of atom-photon excitations. We demonstrate that the quenched dynamics of a finite-sized array of coupled resonators induces a first-order like phase transition. The latter is accompanied by domain nucleation that can be used to manipulate the photonic transport properties of the simulated superfluid phase; this, in turn, leads to an empirical scaling law. This universal behavior emerges from light-matter interaction and the topology of the array. The validity of our results over a wide range of complex architectures might lead to a promising device for use in quantum scaled quantum simulations.