Understanding how a quantum many-body state is maintained stably as a nonequilibrium steady state is of fundamental and practical importance for exploration and exploitation of open quantum systems. We establish a general equivalent condition for an open quantum many-body system governed by the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad dynamics under local drive and/or dissipation to have a quantum independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) steady state. We present a sufficient condition for a system to have a quantum i.i.d. steady state by identifying a set of operators that commute with arbitrary quantum i.i.d. states. In particular, a set of quantum i.i.d. states is found to be an invariant subset of time evolution superoperators for systems that satisfy the sufficient condition. These findings not only identify a class of models with exactly solvable steady states but also lead to a no-go theorem that precludes quantum entanglement and spatial correlations in a broad class of quantum many-body steady states in a dissipative environment.
Understanding how a quantum many-body state is maintained stably as a nonequilibrium steady state is of fundamental and practical importance for exploration and exploitation of open quantum systems. We establish a general equivalent condition for an open quantum many-body system governed by the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad dynamics under local drive and/or dissipation to have a quantum independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) steady state. We present a sufficient condition for a system to have a quantum i.i.d. steady state by identifying a set of operators that commute with arbitrary quantum i.i.d. states. In particular, a set of quantum i.i.d. states is found to be an invariant subset of time evolution superoperators for systems that satisfy the sufficient condition. These findings not only identify a class of models with exactly solvable steady states but also lead to a no-go theorem that precludes quantum entanglement and spatial correlations in a broad class of quantum many-body steady states in a dissipative environment.
Abstract The aims of this paper are twofold. The first aim is to give a brief review of the most relevant theoretical results concerning the uniqueness of the steady-state solution of the Lindblad–Gorini–Kossakowski–Sudarshan master equation and the criteria which guarantee relaxingness and irreducibility of dynamical semigroups. In particular, we test and discuss their physical meaning by considering their applicability to the characterisation of the simplest open quantum system i.e. a two-level system coupled to a bath of harmonic oscillators at zero temperature. The second aim is to provide a set of sufficient conditions which guarantees the uniqueness of the steady-state solution and its attractivity. Starting from simple assumptions, we derive simple criteria that can be efficiently exploited to characterise the behavior of dissipative systems of spins and bosons (with truncated Fock space), and a wide variety of other open quantum systems recently studied.
We present a simple proof of a sufficient condition for the uniqueness of nonequilibrium steady states of Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad equations. We demonstrate the applications of the sufficient condition using examples of the transverse-field Ising model, the XYZ model, and the tight-binding model with dephasing.
We present a rigorous and comprehensive classification of the asymptotic behavior of time-dependent Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) equations under the assumption of Hermitian jump operators. Our results apply to a broad class of GKSL equations whose time dependence is assumed to be recurrent, including time-independent, periodic, quasiperiodic, and certain classes of random time dependence. Our main contributions are twofold: first, we establish a criterion for the uniqueness of steady states. The criterion is formulated in terms of the algebra generated by the GKSL generators and provides a necessary and sufficient condition when the generators are analytic functions of time. We demonstrate the utility of our criterion through prototypical examples, including quantum many-body spin chains. Second, we extend the concept of strong symmetry for time-dependent GKSL equations by introducing two distinct forms, strong symmetry in the Schrödinger picture and that in the interaction picture, and completely classify the asymptotic dynamics with them. More concretely, we rigorously uncover that the strong symmetry in the interaction picture is responsible for non-trivial time-dependent steady states, such as coherent oscillations, whereas that in the Schrödinger picture controls the existence of time-independent steady states. This classification not only encompasses established mechanisms underlying non-trivial oscillatory steady states, such as strong dynamical symmetry and Floquet dynamical symmetry, but also reveals symmetry-predicted, time-dependent asymptotic dynamics in a novel class of open quantum systems. Our framework thus provides a rigorous foundation for controlling dissipative quantum systems in a time-dependent manner.
We study open quantum systems whose evolution is governed by a master equation of Kossakowski-Gorini-Sudarshan-Lindblad type and give a characterization of the convex set of steady states of such systems based on the generalized Bloch representation. It is shown that an isolated steady state of the Bloch equation cannot be a center, i.e., that the existence of a unique steady state implies attractivity and global asymptotic stability. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a unique steady state are derived and applied to different physical models, including two- and four-level atoms, (truncated) harmonic oscillators, and composite and decomposable systems. It is shown how these criteria could be exploited in principle for quantum reservoir engineeing via coherent control and direct feedback to stabilize the system to a desired steady state. We also discuss the question of limit points of the dynamics. Despite the nonexistence of isolated centers, open quantum systems can have nontrivial invariant sets. These invariant sets are center manifolds that arise when the Bloch superoperator has purely imaginary eigenvalues and are closely related to decoherence-free subspaces.
Exact solutions of model problems are elusive but potent tools for understanding many-body interacting systems. We study a system of dissipative qubits with the Heisenberg interaction and obtain, for qubits under a certain condition, an exact steady-state solution to the Lindblad master equation describing its dynamics. The physical content of such a solution is a remarkable no-go theorem, which states that for qubits possessing identical ratios of the damping and gain rates, no correlations can emerge between them in the steady state, provided their interaction is in the Heisenberg XXZ form. Notably, this even holds for the more general Heisenberg XYZ interaction if the damping rate equals the gain rate. Two consequences of this theorem are discussed in the context of quantum synchronization of qubits. The first is a complete blockade of quantum synchronization of qubits under the aforementioned condition, an effect reminiscent of, but having a much broader scope than, that found in dissipated Kerr-anharmonic oscillators. The second, and a more important consequence is the possibility of reducing a complex all-to-all qubit network to a much simpler one-to-all network by engineering the dissipation. Such a reduction is desired because it provides an effective tool to optimize the quantum synchronization of a complex qubit network. Finally, we propose two concrete experimental schemes to implement our model and to test our predictions. The no-go theorem opens a new avenue for exactly toggling the correlations of quantum many-body systems on and off without disrupting their interaction.
This text is a short introduction to the physics of driven-dissipative many-body systems, focusing on a few selected topics. Beyond its more ``historical'' interest in the study of atomic physics and quantum optics, presently the modeling and studying dissipative phenomena in open quantum systems is pivotal to understanding quantum hardware platforms. While the lack of a thermodynamic potential for these out-of-equilibrium open systems makes it theoretically challenging to investigate their physics, at the same time it allows going beyond the thermodynamic paradigms and investigating new and exotic phenomena. We will focus on one of the simplest, yet most effective, descriptions of open quantum systems, namely the (Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-) Lindblad master equation. This phenomenological approach describes quantum systems that weakly interact with their surrounding environment. Although many of the results derived below will apply to any quantum system, we will focus in particular on bosonic/spin systems.