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Physical Review A

Manifolds of exceptional points and effective Zeno limit of an open two-qubits system

Vladislav Popkov, Carlo Presilla A, Mario Salerno

Published May 19, 2025• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Analytical investigations of the Liouvillian exceptional point manifolds (LEPM) of a two-qubit open system reveal a phase diagram for effective Zeno transitions at small dissipation. Notably, the fastest relaxation to the non-equilibrium steady state occurs nearby LEPMs associated with the effective Zeno regime.
DOI
10.1103/physreva.111.l050202

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We analytically investigate the Liouvillian exceptional point manifolds (LEPMs) of a two-qubit open system, where one qubit is coupled to a dissipative polarization bath. Exploiting a Z_2 symmetry, we block-diagonalize the Liouvillian and show that one symmetry block yields two planar LEPMs while the other one exhibits a more intricate, multi-sheet topology. The intersection curves of these manifolds provide a phase diagram for effective Zeno transitions at small dissipation. These results are consistent with a perturbative extrapolation from the strong Zeno regime. Interestingly, we find that the fastest relaxation to the non-equilibrium steady state occurs on LEPMs associated with the transition to the effective Zeno regime.
Exceptional points in non-Hermitian quantum systems give rise to novel genuine quantum phenomena. Recent explorations of exceptional-point-induced quantum phase transitions have extended from discrete-variable to continuous-variable-encoded quantum systems. However, quantum phase transitions driven by Liouvillian exceptional points (LEPs) in continuous-variable platforms remain largely unexplored. Here, we construct and investigate a Liouvillian exceptional structure based on a driven-dissipative Kerr-cat qubit. Through numerical simulations, we reveal a quantum phase transition occurring at the LEP characterized by a sudden change in dynamical behavior from underdamped oscillations to overdamped relaxations as visualized via Wigner functions and Bloch sphere trajectories. Notably the negativity of the Wigner function serves as a direct signature of genuine quantum coherence unattainable in conventional single-qubit non-Hermitian systems. Furthermore, we introduce the phase difference between the off-diagonal elements of the Liouvillian eigenmatrices as a novel parameter to quantify the transition. Our results establish the Kerr-cat qubit as a novel continuous-variable setting for exploring dissipative quantum criticality and intrinsic non-Hermitian physics.
Abstract Exceptional points in non-Hermitian quantum systems give rise to genuine quantum phenomena. Recent explorations of exceptional-point-induced phase transitions have extended from discrete-variable to continuous-variable-encoded quantum systems. However, phase transitions driven by Liouvillian exceptional points (LEPs) in continuous-variable platforms remain largely unexplored. Here, we construct and investigate a Liouvillian exceptional structure based on a driven-dissipative Kerr-cat qubit. Through numerical simulations, we numerically reveal a non-Hermitian phase transition occurring at the LEP characterized by a sudden change in dynamical behavior from underdamped oscillations to overdamped relaxations as visualized via Wigner functions and Bloch sphere trajectories. The dynamical pattern of Wigner interference fringes provides a phase-space signature of the LEP-induced phase transition, while Wigner negativity certifies the genuine quantum nonclassicality of the system. Our results establish the Kerr-cat qubit as a continuous-variable setting for exploring dissipative quantum criticality and intrinsic non-Hermitian physics.
Abstract Hamiltonian exceptional points (HEPs) are spectral degeneracies of non-Hermitian Hamiltonians describing classical and semiclassical open systems with losses and/or gain. However, this definition overlooks the occurrence of quantum jumps in the evolution of open quantum systems. These quantum effects are properly accounted for by considering quantum Liouvillians and their exceptional points (LEPs). Specifically, an LEP corresponds to the coalescence of two or more eigenvalues and the corresponding eigenmatrices of a given Liouvillian at critical values of external parameters (Minganti et al 2019 Phys. Rev. A 100 062131). Here, we explicitly describe how standard quantum process tomography, which reveals the dynamics of a quantum system, can be readily applied to detect and characterize quantum LEPs of quantum non-Hermitian systems. We conducted experiments on an IBM quantum processor to implement a prototype model with one-, two-, and three qubits simulating the decay of a single qubit through competing channels, resulting in LEPs but not HEPs. Subsequently, we performed tomographic reconstruction of the corresponding experimental Liouvillian and its LEPs using both single- and two-qubit operations. This example underscores the efficacy of process tomography in tuning and observing LEPs even in the absence of HEPs.
Usually, when investigating exceptional points (EPs) of an open Markovian bosonic system, one deals with spectral degeneracies of a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian (NHH), which can correctly describe the system dynamics only in the semiclassical regime. A recently proposed quantum Liouvillian framework [Minganti et al., Phys. Rev. A 100, 062131 (2019)] enables the complete determination of the dynamical properties of such systems and their EPs (referred to as Liouvillian EPs, or LEPs) in the quantum regime by taking into account the effects of quantum jumps, which are ignored in the NHH formalism. Moreover, the symmetry and eigenfrequency spectrum of the NHH become a part of much larger Liouvillian eigenspace. As such, the EPs of an NHH form a subspace of the LEPs. Here we show that once an NHH of a dissipative linear bosonic system exhibits an EP of a certain finite order nnn, it immediately implies that the corresponding LEP can become of any higher order $m\ensuremath{\ge}n$ defined in the infinite Hilbert space. These higher-order LEPs can be identified by the coherence and spectral functions at the steady state. The coherence functions can offer a convenient tool to probe extreme system sensitivity to external perturbations in the vicinity of higher-order LEPs. As an example, we study a linear bosonic system of a bimodal cavity with incoherent mode coupling to reveal its higher-order LEPs; particularly, of second and third order via first- and second-order coherence functions, respectively. Accordingly, these LEPs can be additionally revealed by squared and cubic Lorentzian spectral lineshapes in the power and intensity-fluctuation spectra. Moreover, we demonstrate that these EPs can also be associated with spontaneous parity-time (PT\mathcal{PT}PT) and anti-PT\mathcal{PT}PT-symmetry breaking in the system studied. These symmetries can be switched in the output fields (the so-called supermodes) of an additional linear coupler with a properly chosen coupling strength. Thus, we show that the initial loss-loss dynamics for the supermodes can be equivalent to the balanced gain-loss evolution.
We investigate speeding up of relaxation of Markovian open quantum systems with the Liouvillian exceptional point (LEP), where the slowest decay mode degenerates with a faster decay mode. The degeneracy significantly increases the gap of the Liouvillian operator, which determines the time scale of such systems in converging to stationarity and thus accelerates the relaxation process. We explore an experimentally relevant three-level atomic system whose eigenmatrices and eigenspectra are obtained completely analytically. This allows us to gain insights into the LEP and examine the respective dynamics with details. We illustrate that the gap can be further widened by Floquet engineering, which further accelerates the relaxation process. Finally, we extend this approach to analyze laser cooling of trapped ions, where vibrations (phonons) couple to the electronic states. An optimal cooling condition is obtained analytically, which agrees with both existing experiments and numerical simulations. In this paper, we provide analytical insights into understanding LEP as well as controlling and optimizing the dissipative dynamics of atoms and trapped ions.