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arXiv:2607.03950

Orthogonality Edges in Strong-Coupling Quantum Work Statistics

Atta ur Rahman, Muhammad Noman, S. M. Zangi, Saeed Haddadi

quant-phcond-mat.stat-mechphysics.app-phSubmitted Jul 4, 2026• Announced Jul 7, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

Strong coupling to a reservoir can do more than shift, broaden, or dress the work peaks of a driven quantum system. When the reservoir is infrared singular, a sudden change of a local control parameter can alter the boundary condition seen by infinitely many low-energy modes, converting a quasiparticle-like threshold line into a many-body edge. We demonstrate this mechanism for the inclusive work distribution of the biased spin-boson model under a sudden bias inversion. In the independent-boson limit, the problem is exactly solvable and gives a sharp infrared classification: a super-Ohmic bath can retain a finite elastic threshold weight, whereas Ohmic and sub-Ohmic baths extinguish the elastic line through boundary orthogonality. At the Ohmic fixed point, the same exponent controls both the vanishing elastic residue and the low-work continuum. We then ask how this edge is resolved away from the static-boundary limit. Using displaced-basis exact diagonalization of logarithmically discretized baths, we find that finite tunnelling leaves an edge-like continuum over the accessible energy window, while separating two operational diagnostics of the threshold: the cumulative-continuum exponent extracted from $z$-interleaved spectra lies above the elastic-overlap exponent extracted from $z$-averaged overlaps, $θ_C>θ_Z$. We interpret this separation as a finite-energy crossover away from the static-boundary fixed point, not as evidence for a new asymptotic fixed point. The separation survives fitting-window variation, oscillator-cutoff checks, spectrum-size checks, and leave-one-$z$-out tests, while time-domain characteristic functions provide a compatible but non-decisive diagnostic. Finally, the same threshold edge controls the sampling cost of Jarzynski-type exponential averages, making rare low-work events increasingly important at low temperature.

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•Oct 6, 2026•0 citations
Strong coupling to a reservoir can do more than shift, broaden, or dress the work peaks of a driven quantum system. When the reservoir is infrared singular, a sudden change of a local control parameter can alter the boundary condition seen by infinitely many low-energy modes, converting a quasiparticle-like threshold line into a many-body edge. We demonstrate this mechanism for the inclusive work distribution of the biased spin-boson model under a sudden bias inversion. In the independent-boson limit, the problem is exactly solvable and gives a sharp infrared classification: a super-Ohmic bath can retain a finite elastic threshold weight, whereas Ohmic and sub-Ohmic baths extinguish the elastic line through boundary orthogonality. At the Ohmic fixed point, the same exponent controls both the vanishing elastic residue and the low-work continuum. We then ask how this edge is resolved away from the static-boundary limit. Using displaced-basis exact diagonalization of logarithmically discretized baths, we find that finite tunnelling leaves an edge-like continuum over the accessible energy window, while separating two operational diagnostics of the threshold: the cumulative-continuum exponent extracted from zzz-interleaved spectra lies above the elastic-overlap exponent extracted from zzz-averaged overlaps, θC>θZθ_C>θ_ZθC​>θZ​. We interpret this separation as a finite-energy crossover away from the static-boundary fixed point, not as evidence for a new asymptotic fixed point. The separation survives fitting-window variation, oscillator-cutoff checks, spectrum-size checks, and leave-one-zzz-out tests, while time-domain characteristic functions provide a compatible but non-decisive diagnostic. Finally, the same threshold edge controls the sampling cost of Jarzynski-type exponential averages, making rare low-work events increasingly important at low temperature.
The non-equilibrium quantum thermodynamics of many-body open systems is notoriously rich, especially in the strong-coupling regime where strong system-bath correlations develop and interactions produce non-perturbative effects. Such systems can be described by `quantum impurity models' where the system and bath are treated on an equal footing as a single composite. Paradigmatic examples are the spin-boson and Anderson impurity models, in which system degrees of freedom interact with either bosonic or fermionic gapless baths. Here we study the quantum work distribution function (WDF) of such systems following a quench. Capturing the full continuum of many-body excitations in the WDF requires a non-perturbative solution of the underlying non-equilibrium quantum impurity problem. For this purpose, we extend the time-dependent numerical renormalization group (TDNRG) approach to the calculation of the WDF, which applies directly in the thermodynamic limit, can be used for arbitrary quench amplitudes at zero or finite temperature, and provides exponentially fine low-energy resolution. Our numerically-exact solution reveals power-law threshold behavior due to the Anderson orthogonality catastrophe when the work approaches its minimum value, with universal scaling collapse of the distribution below an emergent low-energy scale induced by system-bath correlations.
We investigate the dynamical quantum Fisher information of a two-level system coupled to a bosonic environment, focusing on the estimation of the qubit gap. We combine analytical calculations with numerically controlled matrix-product-state simulations. In the exactly solvable pure-dephasing Ohmic regime at zero temperature, the long-time quantum Fisher information displays a coupling-dependent algebraic behavior, leading to a dynamical crossover: it grows without bound at weak coupling, approaches a finite asymptotic value at the crossover coupling, and vanishes at strong coupling. At finite temperature, thermal fluctuations suppress the long-time growth and generate a finite-time maximum, whose dependence on the dephasing coupling retains a clear signa- ture of the zero-temperature crossover. We show that this crossover is absent at zero temperature in non-Ohmic baths: the long-time quantum Fisher information vanishes in the sub-Ohmic and diverges in the super-Ohmic regimes. At non-zero temperature instead, the crossover appears for a super-Ohmic quadratic bath and the crossover coupling becomes temperature-dependent. Moreover, in the zero-temperature Ohmic regime, we introduce an additional amplitude-damping system-bath coupling that induces energy relaxation. This relaxation channel replaces the unbounded long-time growth with a finite asymptotic quantum Fisher information associated with the reduced interacting ground state, while a signature of the pure-dephasing crossover persists in the early-time dynamics. These results establish a direct connection between the low-frequency structure of the bath and the asymptotic metrological behavior of dynamical gap sensing, and show how thermal fluctuations and energy relaxation regularize the ideal pure-dephasing dynamical crossover of the quantum Fisher information.
Understanding relaxation dynamics in open quantum systems is a central problem in nonequilibrium quantum physics. Here we investigate the quantum Mpemba effect in the spin boson model. In the weak coupling Markovian regime we show that the occurrence of the effect strongly depends on the choice of distance measure at low temperature: while it appears in the trace distance, it can disappear in the quantum relative entropy. Going beyond the weak-coupling approximation, numerically exact simulations of the full system bath dynamics reveal that increasing coupling enhances the effect in the trace distance and restores it in the quantum relative entropy. We uncover a simple Bloch sphere picture of the effect: within the excited-state hemisphere, pairs of states related by rotations and having the same Bloch-vector modulus generically exhibit an inversion of their relaxation ordering. This behavior is robust across sub Ohmic, Ohmic, and super Ohmic bath spectra. In the Ohmic and sub Ohmic regimes, the crossing time becomes strongly suppressed upon approaching the critical region, whereas in the super Ohmic regime the effect remains enhanced despite the absence of a finite-coupling localization transition. These results highlight the interplay between geometry, distance measures, system--environment coupling, and bath spectral properties in anomalous quantum relaxation.
Quantum mechanics describes the unitary time evolution of closed systems. In practice, every quantum system interacts with the environment leading to an irreversible loss of coherence. The Spin-Boson model (SBM) is central to the understanding of the fundamental process of decoherence of a two-state quantum system interacting with a bosonic heat bath but the nature of transient dynamics in the presence of hybrid diagonal and off-diagonal system-bath interactions remains largely unexplored. Here, we investigate how the hybrid system-bath interactions of an Ohmic environment induce localization in the bias-free SBM. For strong coupling to the environment, localization is strongly affected by a dynamically generated bias via the renormalization of the tunneling amplitude. We find that counteractive effects of Hamiltonian parameters on non-exponential short-time dynamics and long-time population equilibration can lead to a separation of timescales and non-equilibrium quantum coherent dynamics that can persist even for ultra-strong system-bath interaction. The findings offer novel opportunities to exploit coherence as a resource in quantum devices operating in the ultra-strong coupling regime.
Quantum mechanics describes the unitary time evolution of closed systems. In practice, every quantum system interacts with the environment, leading to an irreversible loss of coherence. The spin-boson model (SBM) is central to the understanding of the fundamental process of decoherence of a two-state quantum system interacting with a bosonic heat bath, but the nature of transient dynamics in the presence of hybrid diagonal and off-diagonal system-bath interactions remains much less explored. Here, we investigate how the hybrid system-bath interactions of an Ohmic environment induce localization in the bias-free SBM. For strong coupling to the environment, localization is strongly affected by a dynamically generated bias via the renormalization of the tunneling amplitude. We find that counteracting effects of Hamiltonian parameters on non-exponential short-time dynamics and long-time population equilibration can lead to a separation of timescales and transient quantum coherent dynamics that can persist even for ultra-strong system-bath interaction. The findings offer novel insight into the equilibration behavior of quantum devices operating in the ultra-strong coupling regime.
A particle is confined by a high but finite potential wall. The wall's height is changed, and the particle's initial state is a complete thermal mixture. Almost all particles retain their ordered energy-level label as the wall becomes harder. That familiar measure of successful control nevertheless misses a small population at increasingly high energies. These rare outcomes dominate the leading dissipated work and make the work variance grow. The paper derives this rare-energy law from the actual continuum Hamiltonian, without discarding the initially occupied high-energy states or replacing the finite wall by a perfectly reflecting boundary. It then proves a limitation on pulse shaping: changing only the wall height with a bounded integrated height action cannot remove the leading energetic cost. This remains true when the waveform and duration change with the wall hardness. The mechanism is an endpoint displacement extending over an entire half-line in the boundary coordinate; the finite-norm correction produced by bounded-action control cannot cancel it. The leading thermodynamic information is also accessible in principle through final-energy measurements. For each fixed protocol, a finite set of appropriately chosen high-energy bands recovers arbitrarily much of the leading dissipative relative entropy. The energy-basis coherence contribution is smaller order. This does not make the measurement inexpensive: the energy range increases and the counts become rare. A separate finite-height continuum certificate supplies one concrete probability floor and work bound, uniformly over the stated action class.