TY  - JOUR
PB  - SciPost Foundation
DO  - 10.21468/SciPostPhys.17.6.167
TI  - Topologically ordered steady states in open quantum systems
PY  - 2024/12/13
UR  - https://scipost.org/SciPostPhys.17.6.167
JF  - SciPost Physics
JA  - SciPost Phys.
VL  - 17
IS  - 6
SP  - 167
A1  - Wang, Zijian
AU  - Dai, Xu-Dong
AU  - Wang, He-Ran
AU  - Wang, Zhong
AB  - The interplay between dissipation and correlation can lead to novel emergent phenomena in open systems. Here we investigate "steady-state topological order" defined by the robust topological degeneracy of steady states, which is a generalization of the ground-state topological degeneracy of closed systems. Specifically, we construct two representative Liouvillians using engineered dissipation, and exactly solve the steady states with topological degeneracy. We find that while the steady-state topological degeneracy is fragile under noise in two dimensions, it is stable in three dimensions, where a genuine many-body phase with topological degeneracy is realized. We identify universal features of steady-state topological physics such as the deconfined emergent gauge field and slow relaxation dynamics of topological defects. The transition from a topologically ordered phase to a trivial phase is also investigated via numerical simulation. Our work highlights the essential difference between ground-state topological order in closed systems and steady-state topological order in open systems.
ER  -

@Article{10.21468/SciPostPhys.17.6.167,
	title={{Topologically ordered steady states in open quantum systems}},
	author={Zijian Wang and Xu-Dong Dai and He-Ran Wang and Zhong Wang},
	journal={SciPost Phys.},
	volume={17},
	pages={167},
	year={2024},
	publisher={SciPost},
	doi={10.21468/SciPostPhys.17.6.167},
	url={https://scipost.org/10.21468/SciPostPhys.17.6.167},
}