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arXiv:2608.10948

Steady-state phase transition in one-dimensional hybrid contact process

Lin Shang, Shuai Geng, Xingli Li, Jiasen Jin

cond-mat.stat-mechquant-phSubmitted Aug 11, 2026• Announced Aug 12, 2026
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Abstract

We investigate the steady-state phase transition in a one-dimensional hybrid contact process. We implement the single-site and cluster mean-field approximations based on the effective fields and present all the possible steady states of the system. We show the existence of the stable absorbing and active phases, and the bistable region in the long-time limit. The saddle-node bifurcation is observed at the boundary between the absorbing phase and the bistable region, suggesting a discontinuous phase transition. While the absorbing to active phase transition is continuous. To characterize the nonclassical scaling behavior of the continuous phase transition, we extract the true critical points and exponents by means of the coherent anomaly method.

Comments
9 pages, 6 figures

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We investigate the steady-state phase transition in a one-dimensional hybrid contact process. We implement the single-site and cluster mean-field approximations based on the effective fields and present all the possible steady states of the system. We show the existence of the stable absorbing and active phases, and the bistable region in the long-time limit. The saddle-node bifurcation is observed at the boundary between the absorbing phase and the bistable region, suggesting a discontinuous phase transition. While the absorbing to active phase transition is continuous. To characterize the nonclassical scaling behavior of the continuous phase transition, we extract the true critical points and exponents by means of the coherent anomaly method.
We investigate the steady-state phases of the one-dimensional quantum contact process model. We present the Liouvillian gap in the thermodynamic limit and uncover the metastability of the system. Exploiting the mean-field approximations with a novel self-consistent condition based on the effective field, we avoid the interference of the metastable state. We show the feature of saddle-node bifurcation of the order parameter revealing the discontinuous phase transition of the steady state and extract the transition point for an infinite-size system. We show the monotonic decrease of the steady-state magnetic susceptibility by the linked-cluster expansion, which does not support the divergence of the correlation length at the vicinity of the transition point. The present results may be tested in the quantum simulator of Rydberg atoms.
The phase transition of the one-dimensional, diffusive pair contact process (PCPD) is investigated by N cluster mean-field approximations and high precision simulations. The N=3,4 cluster approximations exhibit smooth transition line to absorbing state by varying the diffusion rate D with beta_2=2 mean-field order parameter exponent of the pair density. This contradicts with former N=2 results, where two different mean-field behavior was found along the transition line. Extensive dynamical simulations on L=10^5 lattices give estimates for the order parameter exponents of the particles for 0.05 <= D <= 0.7. These data can support former two distinct class findings. However the gap between low and high D exponents is narrower than estimated previously and the possibility for interpreting numerical data as a single class behavior with exponents alpha=0.21(1), beta=0.41(1) assuming logarithmic corrections is shown. Finite size scaling and cluster simulation results are also presented.
The contact process is a paradigmatic classical stochastic system displaying critical behavior even in one dimension. It features a nonequilibrium phase transition into an absorbing state that has been widely investigated and shown to belong to the directed percolation universality class. When the same process is considered in a quantum setting, much less is known. So far, mainly semiclassical studies have been conducted and the nature of the transition in low dimensions is still a matter of debate. Also, from a numerical point of view, from which the system may look fairly simple-especially in one dimension-results are lacking. In particular, the presence of the absorbing state poses a substantial challenge, which appears to affect the reliability of algorithms targeting directly the steady state. Here we perform real-time numerical simulations of the open dynamics of the quantum contact process and shed light on the existence and on the nature of an absorbing state phase transition in one dimension. We find evidence for the transition being continuous and provide first estimates for the critical exponents. Beyond the conceptual interest, the simplicity of the quantum contact process makes it an ideal benchmark problem for scrutinizing numerical methods for open quantum nonequilibrium systems.
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We study in further detail particle models displaying a boundary-induced absorbing state phase transition [Deloubrière and van Wijland Phys. Rev. E 65, 046104 (2002) and Barato and Hinrichsen, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 165701 (2008)]. These are one-dimensional systems consisting of a single site (the boundary) where creation and annihilation of particles occur, and a bulk where particles move diffusively. We study different versions of these models and confirm that, except for one exactly solvable bosonic variant exhibiting a discontinuous transition and trivial exponents, all the others display nontrivial behavior, with critical exponents differing from their mean-field values, representing a universality class. Finally, the relation of these systems with a (0+1)-dimensional non-Markovian process is discussed.