We map a quantum Rabi ring, consisting of $N$ cavities arranged in a ring geometry, into an effective magnetic model containing the $XY$ exchange and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interactions. The analog of the latter is induced by an artificial magnetic field, which modulates photon hopping between nearest-neighbor cavities with a phase. This mapping facilitates the description and understanding of the different phases in the quantum optical model through simple arguments of competing magnetic interactions. For the square geometry ($N=4$) the rich phase diagram exhibits three superradiant phases denoted as ferro-superradiant, antiferro-superradiant, and chiral superradiant. In particular, the DM interaction is responsible for the chiral phase in which the energetically degenerate configurations of the order parameters are similar to the in-plane magnetizations of skyrmions with different helicities. The antiferro-superradiant phase is suppressed in the triangle geometry ($N=3$) as geometric frustration contributes to stabilize the chiral phase even for small values of the DM interaction. The chiral phases for odd and even $N$ show a different scaling behavior close to the phase transition. The equivalent behavior on both systems opens the possibility of simulating chiral magnetism in a few-body quantum optical platform, as well as understanding one system using the insights gained from the other.

• Received 19 July 2022
• Accepted 26 September 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.183602