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arXiv:2407.08398 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Delocalization of skin steady states

Xu Feng, Shu Chen

Published Oct 11, 2024• 6 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The skin effect, characterized by the tendency of particles to accumulate at the boundaries, has been extensively studied in non-Hermitian systems. In this paper, we propose an intuitive Lindbladian composed of two chains with reversed skin localization. The skin steady state is gradually delocalized as the interchain coupling increases. In the single-body scenario, it corresponds to a shift in the scaling of the Liouvillian gap $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$ from $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}\ensuremath{\propto}{N}^{0}$ to $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}\ensuremath{\propto}{N}^{\ensuremath{-}2}$. Notably, exact diagonalization results reveal a system-size sensitivity of the single-particle Liouvillian spectrum, inherited from the system-size sensitivity of the non-Hermitian effective Hamiltonian. We predict that even an arbitrarily small coupling will induce dramatic changes in the Liouvillian spectrum and steady state in the thermodynamic limit, a phenomenon we term the critical Liouvillian skin effect. Additionally, in the many-body scenario, by employing the stochastic Schr\"odinger equation to unravel the Lindblad master equation, it is revealed that the scaling behavior of steady-state entanglement changes from the area law to the logarithmic law. In this paper, we demonstrate the delocalization of both single- and many-body skin steady states, introducing a mechanism for inducing entanglement transitions beyond the quantum Zeno effect.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.110.144305

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The skin effect, characterized by the tendency of particles to accumulate at the boundaries, has been extensively studied in non-Hermitian systems. In this paper, we propose an intuitive Lindbladian composed of two chains with reversed skin localization. The skin steady state is gradually delocalized as the interchain coupling increases. In the single-body scenario, it corresponds to a shift in the scaling of the Liouvillian gap \ensuremathΔ\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}\ensuremathΔ from \ensuremathΔ\ensuremath∝N0\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}\ensuremath{\propto}{N}^{0}\ensuremathΔ\ensuremath∝N0 to \ensuremathΔ\ensuremath∝N\ensuremath−2\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}\ensuremath{\propto}{N}^{\ensuremath{-}2}\ensuremathΔ\ensuremath∝N\ensuremath−2. Notably, exact diagonalization results reveal a system-size sensitivity of the single-particle Liouvillian spectrum, inherited from the system-size sensitivity of the non-Hermitian effective Hamiltonian. We predict that even an arbitrarily small coupling will induce dramatic changes in the Liouvillian spectrum and steady state in the thermodynamic limit, a phenomenon we term the critical Liouvillian skin effect. Additionally, in the many-body scenario, by employing the stochastic Schr"odinger equation to unravel the Lindblad master equation, it is revealed that the scaling behavior of steady-state entanglement changes from the area law to the logarithmic law. In this paper, we demonstrate the delocalization of both single- and many-body skin steady states, introducing a mechanism for inducing entanglement transitions beyond the quantum Zeno effect.
Recent years have seen remarkable development in open quantum systems effectively described by non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. A unique feature of non-Hermitian topological systems is the skin effect, anomalous localization of an extensive number of eigenstates driven by nonreciprocal dissipation. Despite its significance for non-Hermitian topological phases, the relevance of the skin effect to quantum entanglement and critical phenomena has remained unclear. Here, we find that the skin effect induces a nonequilibrium quantum phase transition in the entanglement dynamics. We show that the skin effect gives rise to a macroscopic flow of particles and suppresses the entanglement propagation and thermalization, leading to the area law of the entanglement entropy in the nonequilibrium steady state. Moreover, we reveal an entanglement phase transition induced by the competition between the unitary dynamics and the skin effect even without disorder or interactions. This entanglement phase transition accompanies nonequilibrium quantum criticality characterized by a nonunitary conformal field theory whose effective central charge is extremely sensitive to the boundary conditions. We also demonstrate that it originates from an exceptional point of the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian and the concomitant scale invariance of the skin modes localized according to the power law. Furthermore, we show that the skin effect leads to the purification and the reduction of von Neumann entropy even in Markovian open quantum systems described by the Lindblad master equation. Our work opens a way to control the entanglement growth and establishes a fundamental understanding of phase transitions and critical phenomena in open quantum systems far from thermal equilibrium.
The Liouvillian skin effect and the non-Hermitian skin effect have both been used to explain the localization of eigenmodes near system boundaries, though the former is arguably more accurate in some regimes due to its incorporation of quantum jumps. However, these frameworks predominantly focus on weak Markovian interactions, neglecting the potentially crucial role of memory effects. To address this, we investigate, utilizing the powerful hierarchical equations of motion method, how a non-Markovian environment can modify the Liouvillian skin effect. We demonstrate that a non-Markovian environment can induce a “thick skin effect,” where the skin mode broadens and shifts into the bulk. We further identify that the skin-mode quantum coherence can only be generated when the coupling contains counter-rotating terms, leading to the coherence delocalization and oscillatory relaxation with a characteristic linear scaling with system size. Remarkably, both the skin-mode and steady-state coherence exhibit resistance to decoherence from additional environmental noise. These findings highlight the profound impact of system-bath correlations on relaxation and localization, revealing unique phenomena beyond conventional Markovian approximations.
The interplay between the non-Hermitian skin effect and the imaginary gap of lossy lattices results in the edge burst, a boundary-induced dynamical phenomenon in which an exceptionally large portion of particle loss occurs at the edge. Here, we find that this intriguing non-Hermitian dynamical phenomenon can be exactly mapped into the steady-state density distribution of a corresponding open quantum system. Consequently, the bulk-edge scaling relation of loss probability in the edge burst maps to that of steady-state density. Furthermore, we introduce a many-body open-system model in which the two-body loss generates an interaction-induced non-Hermitian skin effect. Using the positive-PPP method, we demonstrate the validity of the scaling relation for steady-state correlators. These results provide a unique perspective on the interaction-induced many-body non-Hermitian skin effect. Our predictions are testable in state-of-the-art experimental platforms.
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 (NHSE) refers to the accumulation of an extensive number of eigenstates at system boundaries under open boundary conditions (OBCs). As a dynamical consequence, wave packets in such systems drift and ultimately accumulate at a boundary, giving rise to the dynamical skin effect (DSE). While strong quasiperiodic potentials are known to suppress the DSE by inducing localization, we show that the introduction of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) noise unexpectedly restores it. Using perturbative analysis, we demonstrate that noise effectively maps the non-Hermitian Schrödinger dynamics onto a non-reciprocal master equation, whose complex spectrum develops a noise-induced point gap. This mechanism enables delocalization, reinstates directional transport, and revives the DSE even in regimes where the static NHSE is absent. Moreover, the relaxation dynamics exhibit a non-monotonic dependence on noise strength, reflecting a competition between noise-assisted delocalization and noise-induced decoherence. Our results uncover a noise-enabled mechanism for resurrecting the DSE and suggest a new route for controlling transport in quasiperiodic, open quantum systems.
Recent years have witnessed a surge of research on the non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE) in one-dimensional lattices with finite-range couplings. In this work, we show that the long-range couplings that decay as $1/{l}^{\ensuremath{\alpha}}$ at distance lll can fundamentally modify the behavior of NHSE and the scaling of quantum entanglement in the presence of nonreciprocity. At $\ensuremath{\alpha}=0$, the nonlocality of couplings gives rise to the scale-free skin modes, whose localization length is proportional to the system size. Increasing the exponent $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ drives a complex-to-real spectral transition and a crossover from a scalefree to constant localization length. Furthermore, the scaling of nonequilibrium steady-state entanglement entropy exhibits a subextensive law due to the nonlocality and the complex spectrum, in contrast to an area law arising from NHSE. Our results provide a theoretical understanding on the interplay between long-range couplings and non-Hermiticity.