Driven-dissipative quantum many-body systems have attracted increasing interest in recent years as they lead to novel classes of quantum many-body phenomena. In particular, mean-field calculations predict limit cycle phases, slow oscillations instead of stationary states, in the long-time limit for a number of driven-dissipative quantum many-body systems. Using a cluster mean-field and a self-consistent Mori projector approach, we explore the persistence of such limit cycles as short range quantum correlations are taken into account in a driven-dissipative Heisenberg model.
Driven-dissipative quantum many-body systems have attracted increasing interest in recent years as they lead to novel classes of quantum many-body phenomena. In particular, mean-field calculations predict limit cycle phases, slow oscillations instead of stationary states, in the long-time limit for a number of driven-dissipative quantum many-body systems. Using a cluster mean-field and a self-consistent Mori projector approach, we explore the persistence of such limit cycles as short range quantum correlations are taken into account in a driven-dissipative Heisenberg model.
We study a driven-dissipative model of spins one-half (qubits) on a lattice with nearest-neighbor interactions. Focusing on the role of spatially extended spin-spin correlations in determining the phases of the system, we characterize the spatial structure of the correlations in the steady state, as well as their temporal dynamics. In dimension one we use essentially exact matrix-product-operator simulations on large systems, and pushing these calculations to dimension two, we obtain accurate results on small cylinders. We also employ an approximation scheme based on solving the dynamics of the mean field dressed by the feedback of quantum fluctuations at leading order. This approach allows us to study the effect of correlations in large lattices with over one hundred thousand spins, as the spatial dimension is increased up to five. In dimension two and higher we find two new states that are stabilized by quantum correlations and do not exist in the mean-field limit of the model. One of these is a steady state with mean magnetization values that lie between the two bistable mean-field values and whose correlation functions have properties reminiscent of both. The correlation length of the new phase diverges at a critical point, beyond which we find emerging a new limit cycle state with the magnetization and correlators oscillating periodically in time.
Metastability in many-body quantum systems and its associated exponentially-long timescales have been the subject of considerable recent interest. Here, we focus on a class of driven-dissipative many-body open quantum systems described by a Lindbladian having hidden time-reversal symmetry (a form of quantum detailed balance). Examples include boundary-driven interacting spin chains, bosonic lattice models and driven-dissipative collective spin models. We suggest that for such systems, slow timescales in the vicinity of a dissipative first-order phase transition can be analytically predicted using a special purification of the non-equilibrium steady state. We show the accuracy of our conjecture through detailed studies of a dissipative transverse-field Ising model with collective and local decay, and a driven-dissipative nonlinear cavity model. Our results allow quantitative insights into metastability and slow dynamics for a range of systems, including cases where semiclassical or path-integral instanton approaches are intractable.
We study the dynamics of lattice models of quantum spins one-half, driven by a coherent drive and subject to dissipation. Generically the mean-field limit of these models manifests multistable parameter regions of coexisting steady states with different magnetizations. We introduce an efficient scheme accounting for the corrections to mean field by correlations at leading order, and benchmark this scheme using high-precision numerics based on matrix-product operators in one- and two-dimensional lattices. Correlations are shown to wash the mean-field bistability in dimension one, leading to a unique steady state. In dimension two and higher, we find that multistability is again possible, provided the thermodynamic limit of an infinitely large lattice is taken first with respect to the longtime limit. Variation of the system parameters results in jumps between the different steady states, each showing a critical slowing down in the convergence of perturbations towards the steady state. Experiments with trapped ions can realize the model and possibly answer open questions in the nonequilibrium many-body dynamics of these quantum systems, beyond the system sizes accessible to present numerics.
Driven-dissipative quantum many-body systems have been the subject of many studies in recent years. They possess unique, novel classes of dissipation-stabilized quantum many-body phases including the limit cycle. For a long time it has been speculated if such a behavior, a recurring phenomenon in non-linear classical and quantum many-body systems, can be classified as a time crystal. However, the robustness of these periodic dynamics, against quantum fluctuations is an open question. In this work we seek the answer to this question in a canonical yet important system, i.e., a multi-mode cavity with self and cross-Kerr non-linearity, including the fluctuation effects via higher order correlations. Employing the Keldysh path integral, we investigate the Green's function and correlation of the cavity modes in different regions. Furthermore, we extend our analysis beyond the mean-field by explicitly including the effect of two-body correlations via the 2nd-cumulant expansion. Our results shed light on the emergence of dissipative phase transitions in open quantum systems and clearly indicate the robustness of limit-cycle oscillations in the presence of the quantum fluctuations.
Open quantum many body systems describe several quantum simulators, ranging from arrays of superconducting circuits hosting correlated states of light, to ultracold atoms in optical lattices in presence of controlled dissipative processes. Their theoretical understanding is hampered by the exponential scaling of their Hilbert space and by their intrinsic nonequilibrium nature, limiting the applicability of many traditional approaches. In this work we extend Dynamical Mean Field Theory (DMFT), a powerful nonperturbative technique developed for strongly correlated quantum many-body systems, to Markovian open quantum systems. Within Open-DMFT, a master equation describing a lattice of bosonic particles is mapped, at large but finite connectivity, onto an impurity problem describing a single site coupled to Markovian and non-Markovian environments, where the latter accounts for quantum fluctuations beyond Gutzwiller mean-field theory. We introduce a new non-perturbative approach to solve the impurity problem, which dresses the impurity, featuring Markovian dissipative channels, with the non-Markovian bath, in a self-consistent scheme based on a resummation of non-crossing diagrams. Finally, we apply our Open-DMFT to solve a driven-dissipative Bose-Hubbard model, which is relevant to current experiments with dissipative ultracold bosons. We show that this model undergoes a dissipative phase transition towards a superfluid phase, which can be equally interpreted as a quantum many-body synchronization transition of an array of quantum van der Pol oscillators. We show how Open-DMFT captures crucial effects due to finite lattice connectivity, such as hopping-induced dissipation and heating, which are completely missed by mean field theories and which lead to a drastic reduction of the broken symmetry phase that we interpret as a desynchronization driven by quantum fluctuations.
In the present work we investigate the existence of multiple nonequilibrium steady states in a coherently driven XY lattice of dissipative two-level systems. A commonly used mean-field ansatz, in which spatial correlations are neglected, predicts a bistable behavior with a sharp shift between low- and high-density states. In contrast one-dimensional matrix product methods reveal these effects to be artifacts of the mean-field approach, with both disappearing once correlations are taken fully into account. Instead, a bunching-antibunching transition emerges. This indicates that alternative approaches should be considered for higher spatial dimensions, where classical simulations are currently infeasible. Thus we propose a circuit QED quantum simulator implementable with current technology to enable an experimental investigation of the model considered.