The non-Hermitian skin effect, in which eigenstates of non-Hermitian Hamiltonians are localized at one boundary in the open boundary condition, has attracted great interest recently. In this paper, we investigate the skin effect in one-dimensional dissipative quantum many-body systems, which we call the Liouvillian skin effect (LSE). We rigorously identify the existence of the LSE for generalized boundary conditions by solving the Liouvillian superoperator of an exactly solvable model with the advantage of the Bethe ansatz. The LSE is sensitive to boundary conditions where the signature is reflected in eigenfunctions of the system. We confirm that the LSE is fragile to a tiny coflow boundary hopping with non-Hermitian current but can survive a counterflow boundary hopping in the thermodynamic limit. Our work provides a prototypical example of exactly solvable dissipative quantum many-body lattice systems exhibiting the LSE for generalized boundary conditions. It can be further extended to other integrable open quantum many-body models.
The non-Hermitian skin effect, in which eigenstates of non-Hermitian Hamiltonians are localized at one boundary in the open boundary condition, has attracted great interest recently. In this paper, we investigate the skin effect in one-dimensional dissipative quantum many-body systems, which we call the Liouvillian skin effect (LSE). We rigorously identify the existence of the LSE for generalized boundary conditions by solving the Liouvillian superoperator of an exactly solvable model with the advantage of the Bethe ansatz. The LSE is sensitive to boundary conditions where the signature is reflected in eigenfunctions of the system. We confirm that the LSE is fragile to a tiny coflow boundary hopping with non-Hermitian current but can survive a counterflow boundary hopping in the thermodynamic limit. Our work provides a prototypical example of exactly solvable dissipative quantum many-body lattice systems exhibiting the LSE for generalized boundary conditions. It can be further extended to other integrable open quantum many-body models.
One of the unique features of non-Hermitian Hamiltonians is the non-Hermitian skin effect, namely, that the eigenstates are exponentially localized at the boundary of the system. For open quantum systems, a short-time evolution can often be well described by the effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, while long-time dynamics calls for the Lindblad master equations, in which the Liouvillian superoperators generate time evolution. In this Letter, we find that Liouvillian superoperators can exhibit the non-Hermitian skin effect, and uncover its unexpected physical consequences. It is shown that the non-Hermitian skin effect dramatically shapes the long-time dynamics, such that the damping in a class of open quantum systems is algebraic under periodic boundary conditions but exponential under open boundary conditions. Moreover, the non-Hermitian skin effect and non-Bloch bands cause a chiral damping with a sharp wave front. These phenomena are beyond the effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonians; instead, they belong to the non-Hermitian physics of full-fledged open quantum dynamics.
Non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE) is a unique feature studied extensively in noninteracting non-Hermitian systems. In this paper, we extend the NHSE originally discovered in noninteracting systems to interacting many-body systems by investigating an exactly solvable non-Hermitian model, i.e., the prototypical Lieb-Liniger Bose gas with imaginary vector potential. We show that this non-Hermitian many-body model can also be exactly solved through the Bethe ansatz. By solving the Bethe ansatz equations accurately, the explicit eigenfunction is obtained, and the model's density profiles and momentum distributions are calculated to characterize the NHSE quantitatively. We find that the NHSE is gradually suppressed on the repulsive side but does not vanish as the repulsive interaction strength increases. On the attractive side, the NHSE for bound-state solutions is enhanced as interaction strength grows. In contrast, for the scattering state the NHSE shows a nonmonotonic behavior in the attractive side. Our paper provides an example of the NHSE in exactly solvable many-body systems, and we envision that it can be extended to other non-Hermitian many-body systems, especially to integrable models.
We investigate the impact of nonreciprocity on universality and critical phenomena in open quantum interacting many-body systems. Nonreciprocal open quantum systems often have an exotic spectral sensitivity to boundary conditions, known as the Liouvillian skin effect (LSE). By considering an open quantum XXZ spin chain that exhibits LSE, we demonstrate the existence of a universal scaling regime that is not affected by the presence of the LSE. We resolve the critical exponents, which differ from those of free fermions, via tensor network methods and demonstrate that observables exhibit a universal scaling collapse, irrespective of the reciprocity. We find that the LSE only becomes relevant when a healing length scale ξ_{heal} at the system's edge (which is different from the localization length of the eigenstate of the Liouvillian) exceeds the system size, allowing edge properties to dominate the physics. We expect this result to be a generic feature of nonreciprocal models in the vicinity of a critical point. The driven-dissipative quantum criticality we observe has no classical analog and stems from the existence of multiple dark states.
The non-Hermitian skin effect describes the phenomenon of exponential localization of single-particle eigenstates near the boundary of the system. We consider its generalization to the many-body regime by investigating a general class of interacting fermion lattice models in Markovian open quantum systems. Therein, the elementary excitations from the "vacuum" (steady state) are given by two types of dissipative fermionic modes composed of single-fermion operators, which govern the long-time nonequilibrium dynamics. We perturbatively calculate the self-energy matrix of these bare modes in the presence of interactions, and utilize the non-Bloch band theory to derive an exact integral representation. By imposing complex momentum conservation, we obtain a simplified expression for corrections to Liouvillian spectrum that agrees well with numerical calculations to high precision. We further perform perturbative analysis of Liouvillian eigenstates and identify signatures of interaction-enhanced NHSE at the quasiparticle level, manifested as renormalization of the generalized Brillouin zone. Our results establish a diagrammatic framework for dissipative interacting fermions with non-Hermitian skin effect in a description of full-fledged Lindblad master equations, which resembles Fermi liquid theory in terms of interaction-dressed quasiparticles.
Despite recent intensive research on topological aspects of open quantum systems, effects of strong interactions have not been sufficiently explored. In this paper, we demonstrate that complex-valued interactions induce the Liouvillian skin effect by analyzing a one-dimensional correlated model with two-body loss. We show that, in the presence of complex-valued interactions, eigenmodes and eigenvalues of the Liouvillian strongly depend on boundary conditions. Specifically, we find that complex-valued interactions induce localization of eigenmodes of the Liouvillian around the right edge under open boundary conditions. To characterize the Liouvillian skin effect, we define the topological invariant by using the Liouvillian superoperator. Then, we numerically confirm that the topological invariant captures the Liouvillian skin effect. Furthermore, the presence of the localization of eigenmodes results in the unique dynamics observed only under open boundary conditions: particle accumulation at the right edge in transient dynamics. Our result paves the way to realize topological phenomena in open quantum systems induced by strong interactions.
The non-Hermitian skin effect, namely, that the eigenvalues and eigenstates of a non-Hermitian tight-binding Hamiltonian have significant differences under open or periodic boundary conditions, is a remarkable phenomenon of non-Hermitian systems. Inspired by the presence of the non-Hermitian skin effect, we study the evolution of wave packets in non-Hermitian systems, which can be determined using the single-particle Green's function. Surprisingly, we find that in the thermodynamic limit, the Green's function does not depend on boundary conditions, despite the presence of skin effect. We provide a general proof for this statement in arbitrary dimension with finite hopping range, with an explicit illustration in the non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model. We also explore its applications in noninteracting open quantum systems described by the master equation. We demonstrate that the evolution of the density matrix is independent of the boundary condition.