Theory of relaxation of metastable states

Hiroto Kobayashi, Naomichi Hatano, Akira Terai +1 more

Katarzyna Macieszczak, Mădălin Guţǎ, Igor Lesanovsky +1 more

By generalizing concepts from classical stochastic dynamics, we establish the basis for a theory of metastability in Markovian open quantum systems. Partial relaxation into long-lived metastable states-distinct from the asymptotic stationary state-is a manifestation of a separation of time scales due to a splitting in the spectrum of the generator of the dynamics. We show here how to exploit this spectral structure to obtain a low dimensional approximation to the dynamics in terms of motion in a manifold of metastable states constructed from the low-lying eigenmatrices of the generator. We argue that the metastable manifold is in general composed of disjoint states, noiseless subsystems, and decoherence-free subspaces.

Katarzyna Macieszczak, Dominic C. Rose, Igor Lesanovsky +1 more

We present a general theory of classical metastability in open quantum systems. Metastability is a consequence of a large separation in timescales in the dynamics, leading to the existence of a regime when states of the system appear stationary, before eventual relaxation toward a true stationary state at much larger times. In this work, we focus on the emergence of classical metastability, i.e., when metastable states of an open quantum system with separation of timescales can be approximated as probabilistic mixtures of a finite number of states. We find that a number of classical features follow from this approximation, for the manifold of metastable states, long-time dynamics between them, and symmetries of the dynamics. Namely, those states are approximately disjoint and thus play the role of metastable phases, the relaxation toward the stationary state is approximated by a classical stochastic dynamics between them, and weak symmetries correspond to their permutations. Importantly, the classical dynamics is observed not only on average but also at the level of individual quantum trajectories: We show that time coarse-grained continuous measurement records can be viewed as noisy classical trajectories, while their statistics can be approximated by that of the classical dynamics. Among others, this explains how first-order dynamical phase transitions arise from metastability. Finally, to verify the presence of classical metastability in a given open quantum system, we develop an efficient numerical approach that delivers the set of metastable phases together with the effective classical dynamics. Since the proximity to a first-order dissipative phase transition manifests as metastability, the theory and tools introduced in this work can be used to investigate such transitions---which occur in the large size limit---through the metastable behavior of many-body systems of moderate sizes accessible to numerics.

Mark Makela, Samantha Parmley, Roger Yu

Seiji Miyashita

D. C. Rose, Katarzyna Macieszczak, Igor Lesanovsky +1 more

We apply a recently developed theory for metastability in open quantum systems to a one-dimensional dissipative quantum Ising model. Earlier results suggest this model features either a nonequilibrium phase transition or a smooth but sharp crossover, where the stationary state changes from paramagnetic to ferromagnetic, accompanied by strongly intermittent emission dynamics characteristic of first-order coexistence between dynamical phases. We show that for a range of parameters close to this transition or crossover point the dynamics of the finite system displays pronounced metastability, i.e., the system relaxes first to long-lived metastable states before eventual relaxation to the true stationary state. From the spectral properties of the quantum master operator we characterize the low-dimensional manifold of metastable states, which are shown to be probability mixtures of two, paramagnetic and ferromagnetic, metastable phases. We also show that for long times the dynamics can be approximated by a classical stochastic dynamics between the metastable phases that is directly related to the intermittent dynamics observed in quantum trajectories and thus the dynamical phases.