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arXiv:2601.16883

Universal classical and quantum fluctuations in the large deviations of current of noisy quantum systems: The case of QSSEP and QSSIP

Mathias Albert, Denis Bernard, Tony Jin, Stefano Scopa, Shiyi Wei

cond-mat.stat-mechquant-phSubmitted Jan 23, 2026• Announced Jan 26, 2026
v1 · Jan 23, 2026v2 · Sep 25, 2026
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Abstract

We study the fluctuation statistics of integrated currents in noisy quantum diffusive systems, focusing on the Quantum Symmetric Simple Exclusion and Inclusion Processes (QSSEP/QSSIP). These one-dimensional fermionic (QSSEP) and bosonic (QSSIP) models feature stochastic nearest-neighbor hopping driven by Brownian noise, together with boundary injection and removal processes. They provide solvable microscopic settings in which quantum coherence coexists with diffusion. Upon noise averaging, their dynamics reduce to those of the classical SSEP/SSIP. We show that the cumulant generating function of the integrated current, at large scales, obeys a large deviation principle. To leading order in system size and for each noise realization, it converges to that of the corresponding classical process, establishing a classical typicality of current fluctuations in these noisy quantum systems. We further demonstrate a direct connection with Macroscopic Fluctuation Theory (MFT), showing that the large-scale equations satisfied by biased quantum densities coincide with the steady-state Hamilton equations of MFT, thereby providing a microscopic quantum justification of the MFT framework in these models. Finally, we identify the leading finite-size corrections to the current statistics. We show the existence of subleading contributions of purely quantum origin, which are absent in the corresponding classical setting, and provide their explicit expressions for the second and third current cumulants. These quantum corrections are amenable to direct experimental or numerical verification, provided sufficient control over the noise realizations can be achieved. Their presence points toward the necessity of a quantum extension of Macroscopic Fluctuation Theory.

Journal reference
Phys. Rev. E 114, 034140 (2026)
DOI
10.1103/dt4c-tz98
Comments
24 pages, 5 figures

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We study the fluctuation statistics of integrated currents in noisy quantum diffusive systems, focusing on the Quantum Symmetric Simple Exclusion and Inclusion Processes (QSSEP/QSSIP). These one-dimensional fermionic (QSSEP) and bosonic (QSSIP) models feature stochastic nearest-neighbor hopping driven by Brownian noise, together with boundary injection and removal processes. They provide solvable microscopic settings in which quantum coherence coexists with diffusion. Upon noise averaging, their dynamics reduce to those of the classical SSEP/SSIP. We show that the cumulant generating function of the integrated current, at large scales, obeys a large deviation principle. To leading order in system size and for each noise realization, it converges to that of the corresponding classical process, establishing a classical typicality of current fluctuations in these noisy quantum systems. We further demonstrate a direct connection with Macroscopic Fluctuation Theory (MFT), showing that the large-scale equations satisfied by biased quantum densities coincide with the steady-state Hamilton equations of MFT, thereby providing a microscopic quantum justification of the MFT framework in these models. Finally, we identify the leading finite-size corrections to the current statistics. We show the existence of subleading contributions of purely quantum origin, which are absent in the corresponding classical setting, and provide their explicit expressions for the second and third current cumulants. These quantum corrections are amenable to direct experimental or numerical verification, provided sufficient control over the noise realizations can be achieved. Their presence points toward the necessity of a quantum extension of Macroscopic Fluctuation Theory.
We consider the boundary driven Quantum Symmetric Simple Inclusion Process (QSSIP) which describes a one-dimensional system of bosonic particles with stochastic nearest-neighbor hopping, modeled as a Brownian motion, with gain/loss processes at the endpoints of the chain driving the system out-of-equilibrium. Although the averaged QSSIP dynamics differs from that of the Quantum Symmetric Simple Exclusion Process (QSSEP)-the analogous system where bosons are replaced by fermions-we show that, paradoxically, the dynamics of their matrices of two-point functions, along with all their fluctuations, coincide. In contrary, the underlying classical models differs significantly, as the bosonic statistics allow the inclusion of multiple particles at the same site, in contrast to (symmetric) simple exclusion processes (SSEP). We provide an exact derivation of the large deviation function of density fluctuations in QSSIP and, as a consequence, in the classical inclusion process (SSIP) by exploiting its quantum formulation. Remarkably, our study highlights that, both in QSSEP and QSSIP, fluctuations of the local densities are typically classical, i.e., the cumulant generating functions of the local densities are asymptotically self-averaging and converge toward those of the classical SSEP and SSIP, realization-wise. This provides a test of the conjectured almost sure classical behavior of transport fluctuations, at leading order in the system size, in noisy diffusive quantum many-body systems.
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A universal characterization of non-equilibrium steady states in interacting quantum many-body systems remains one of the central challenges of statistical physics. Here, we address this problem for a paradigmatic model of diffusive interacting quantum matter---the boundary-driven XXZ spin chain with bulk dephasing---and derive, directly from its microscopic Lindblad dynamics, an emergent classical Macroscopic Fluctuation Theory (MFT) governing its large-scale fluctuations. Crucially, the resulting hydrodynamics carries a density-dependent diffusivity and mobility as the fingerprint of interactions. This effective description enables the exact computation of the stationary density profile, long-range correlations, and the full counting statistics of the current, in excellent agreement with tensor-network simulations. Our work demonstrates that noisy quantum many-body systems can realize the universality class of genuinely interacting diffusive matter, beyond the constant-diffusivity class of the symmetric simple exclusion process, and establishes MFT as a powerful universal framework for interacting diffusive quantum systems.
We analyze the effects of various forms of noise on one-dimensional systems of noninteracting fermions. In the strong noise limit, we demonstrate, under mild assumptions, that the statistics of the fermionic correlation matrix in the thermodynamic limit follow a universal form described by the recently introduced quantum simple symmetric exclusion process (QSSEP). For charge transport, we show that QSSEP, along with all models in its universality class, shares the same large deviation function for the transferred charge as the classical SSEP model. The method we introduce to derive this result relies on a gaugelike invariance associated with the choice of the bond where the current is measured. This approach enables the explicit calculation of the cumulant-generating function for both QSSEP and SSEP and establishes an exact correspondence between them. These analytical findings are validated by extensive numerical simulations. Our results establish that a wide range of noisy free-fermionic models share the same QSSEP universality class and show that their transport properties are essentially classical.
We present the solution to a model of fermions hopping between neighboring sites on a line with random Brownian amplitudes and open boundary conditions driving the system out of equilibrium. The average dynamics reduces to that of the symmetric simple exclusion process. However, the full distribution encodes for a richer behavior, entailing fluctuating quantum coherences which survive in the steady limit. We determine exactly the steady statistical distribution of the system state. We show that the out-of-equilibrium quantum coherence fluctuations satisfy a large-deviation principle, and we present a method to recursively compute exactly the large-deviation function. As a by-product, our approach gives a solution of the classical symmetric simple exclusion process based on fermion technology. Our results open the route towards the extension of the macroscopic fluctuation theory to many-body quantum systems.