Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Energy exchange and fluctuations between a dissipative qubit and a monitor under continuous measurement and feedback

  Tsuyoshi Yamamoto, Yasuhiro Tokura

  SciPost Phys. Core 8, 016 (2025) · published 10 February 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Continuous quantum measurement and feedback induce energy exchange between a dissipative qubit and a monitor even in the steady state, as a measurement backaction. Using the Lindblad equation, we identified the maximum and minimum values of the steady-state energy flow as the measurement and feedback states vary, and we demonstrate the qubit cooling induced by these processes. Turning our attention to quantum trajectories under continuous measurement and feedback, we observe that the energy flow fluctuates around the steady-state values. We reveal that the fluctuations are strongly influenced by the measurement backaction, distinguishing them from the standard Poisson noise typically observed in electronic circuits. Our results offer potential application in the development of quantum refrigerators controlled by continuous measurement and feedback, and provide deep insight into quantum thermodynamics from the perspective of fluctuation.

• Non-unitarity maximizing unraveling of open quantum dynamics

  Ruben Daraban, Fabrizio Salas-Ramírez, Johannes Schachenmayer

  SciPost Phys. 18, 048 (2025) · published 7 February 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The dynamics of many-body quantum states in open systems is commonly numerically simulated by unraveling the density matrix into pure-state trajectories. In this work, we introduce a new unraveling strategy that can adaptively minimize the averaged entanglement in the trajectory states. This enables a more efficient classical representation of trajectories using matrix product decompositions. Our new approach is denoted non-unitarity maximizing unraveling (NUMU). It relies on the idea that adaptively maximizing the averaged non-unitarity of a set of Kraus operators leads to a more efficient trajectory entanglement destruction. Compared to other adaptive entanglement lowering algorithms, NUMU is computationally inexpensive. We demonstrate its utility in large-scale simulations with random quantum circuits. NUMU lowers runtimes in practical calculations, and it also provides new insight on the question of classical simulability of quantum dynamics. We show that for the quantum circuits considered here, unraveling methods are much less efficient than full matrix product density operator simulations, hinting to a still large potential for finding more advanced adaptive unraveling schemes.

  1 citation

• Population dynamics of Schrödinger cats

  Foster Thompson, Alex Kamenev

  SciPost Phys. 18, 046 (2025) · published 6 February 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We demonstrate an exact equivalence between classical population dynamics and Lindbladian evolution admitting a dark state and obeying a set of certain local symmetries. We then introduce quantum population dynamics as models in which this local symmetry condition is relaxed. This allows for non-classical processes in which animals behave like Schrödinger's cat and enter superpositions of live and dead states, thus resulting in coherent superpositions of different population numbers. We develop a field theory treatment of quantum population models as a synthesis of Keldysh and third quantization techniques and draw comparisons to the stochastic Doi-Peliti field theory description of classical population models. We apply this formalism to study a prototypical "Schrödinger cat" population model on a $d$-dimensional lattice, which exhibits a phase transition between a dark extinct phase and an active phase that supports a stable quantum population. Using a perturbative renormalization group approach, we find a critical scaling of the Schrödinger cat population distinct from that observed in both classical population dynamics and usual quantum phase transitions.

  2 citations

• Extracting the symmetries of nonequilibrium quantum many-body systems

  Aleksandr N. Mikheev, Viktoria Noel, Ido Siovitz, Helmut Strobel, Markus K. Oberthaler, Jürgen Berges

  SciPost Phys. 18, 044 (2025) · published 4 February 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Symmetries play a pivotal role in our understanding of the properties of quantum many-body systems. While there are theorems and a well-established toolbox for systems in thermal equilibrium, much less is known about the role of symmetries and their connection to dynamics out of equilibrium. This arises due to the direct link between a system's thermal state and its Hamiltonian, which is generally not the case for nonequilibrium dynamics. Here we present a pathway to identify the effective symmetries and to extract them from data in nonequilibrium quantum many-body systems. Our approach is based on exact relations between correlation functions involving different numbers of spatial points, which can be viewed as nonequilibrium versions of (equal-time) Ward identities encoding the symmetries of the system. We derive symmetry witnesses, which are particularly suitable for the analysis of measured or simulated data at different snapshots in time. To demonstrate the potential of the approach, we apply our method to numerical and experimental data for a spinor Bose gas. We investigate the important question of a dynamical restoration of an explicitly broken symmetry of the Hamiltonian by the initial state. Remarkably, it is found that effective symmetry restoration can occur long before the system equilibrates. We also use the approach to define and identify spontaneous symmetry breaking far from equilibrium, which is of great relevance for applications to nonequilibrium phase transitions. Our work opens new avenues for the classification and analysis of quantum as well as classical many-body dynamics in a large variety of systems, ranging from ultracold quantum gases to cosmology.

  2 citations

• Fractional domain wall statistics in spin chains with anomalous symmetries

  Jose Garre Rubio, Norbert Schuch

  SciPost Phys. 18, 043 (2025) · published 4 February 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the statistics of domain wall excitations in quantum spin chains. We focus on systems with finite symmetry groups represented by matrix product unitaries (MPUs), i.e. finite depth quantum circuits. Such symmetries can be anomalous, in which case gapped phases which they support must break the symmetry. The lowest lying excitations of those systems are thus domain wall excitations. We investigate the behavior of these domain walls under exchange, and find that they can exhibit non-trivial exchange statistics. This statistics is completely determined by the anomaly of the symmetry, and we provide a direct relation between the known classification of MPU symmetry actions on ground states and the domain wall statistics. Already for the simplest case of a $\mathbb Z_2$ symmetry, we obtain that the presence of an anomalous MPU symmetry gives rise to domain wall excitations which behave neither as bosons nor as fermions, but rather exhibit fractional statistics. Finally, we show that the exchange statistics of domain walls is a physically accessible quantity, by devising explicit measurement operators through which it can be determined.

  2 citations

• Closed-channel parameters of Feshbach resonances

  Pascal Naidon

  SciPost Phys. 18, 036 (2025) · published 29 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  This work investigates how the closed channel of a Feshbach resonance is characterised by experimental observables. Surprisingly, it is found that the two-body observables associated with the Feshbach resonance can be insensitive to the properties of the closed channel. In particular, it is impossible in this situation to determine the energy of the bound state causing the resonance from the usual experimental data. This is the case for all magnetic Feshbach resonances in ultracold atoms, due to their deep two-body interaction potentials. This insensitivity highlights a major difference with Feshbach resonances that involve shallow interaction potentials, such as hadron resonances. It appears however that short-range two-body correlations and three-body observables are affected by a parameter of the closed channel called the "closed-channel scattering length". A photoassociation experiment is proposed to measure this parameter in ultracold atom systems.

  1 citation

• Integrability of open boundary driven quantum circuits

  Chiara Paletta, Tomaž Prosen

  SciPost Phys. 18, 027 (2025) · published 22 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this paper, we address the problem of Yang-Baxter integrability of doubled quantum circuit of qubits (spins 1/2) with open boundary conditions where the two circuit replicas are only coupled at the left or right boundary. We investigate the cases where the bulk is given by elementary six vertex unitary gates of either the free fermionic XX type or interacting XXZ type. By using the Sklyanin's construction of reflection algebra, we obtain the most general solutions of the boundary Yang-Baxter equation for such a setup. We use this solution to build, from the transfer matrix formalism, integrable circuits with two step discrete time Floquet (aka brickwork) dynamics. We prove that, only if the bulk is a free-model, the boundary matrices are in general non-factorizable, and for particular choice of free parameters yield non-trivial unitary dynamics with boundary interaction between the two chains. Then, we consider the limit of continuous time evolution and we give the interpretation of a restricted set of the boundary terms in the Lindbladian setting. Specifically, for a particular choice of free parameters, the solutions correspond to an open quantum system dynamics with the source terms representing injecting or removing particles from the boundary of the spin chain.

  7 citations

• Understanding and utilizing the inner bonds of process tensors

  Moritz Cygorek, Erik M. Gauger

  SciPost Phys. 18, 024 (2025) · published 20 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Process tensor matrix product operators (PT-MPOs) enable numerically exact simulations for an unprecedentedly broad range of open quantum systems. By representing environment influences in MPO form, they can be efficiently compressed using established algorithms. The dimensions of inner bonds of the compressed PT-MPO may be viewed as an indicator of the complexity of the environment. Here, we show that the inner bonds themselves, not only their dimensions, have a concrete physical meaning: They represent the subspace of the full environment Liouville space which hosts environment excitations that may influence the subsequent open quantum systems dynamics the most. This connection can be expressed in terms of lossy linear transformations, whose pseudoinverses facilitate the extraction of environment observables. We demonstrate this by extracting the environment spin of a central spin problem, the current through a quantum system coupled to two leads, the number of photons emitted from quantum emitters into a structured environment, and the distribution of the total absorbed energy in a driven non-Markovian quantum system into system, environment, and interaction energy terms. Numerical tests further indicate that different PT-MPO algorithms compress environments to similar subspaces. Thus, the physical interpretation of inner bonds of PT-MPOs both provides a conceptional understanding and it enables new practical applications.

  2 citations

• Gauging modulated symmetries: Kramers-Wannier dualities and non-invertible reflections

  Salvatore D. Pace, Guilherme Delfino, Ho Tat Lam, Ömer M. Aksoy

  SciPost Phys. 18, 021 (2025) · published 17 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Modulated symmetries are internal symmetries that act in a non-uniform, spatially modulated way and are generalizations of, for example, dipole symmetries. In this paper, we systematically study the gauging of finite Abelian modulated symmetries in ${1+1}$ dimensions. Working with local Hamiltonians of spin chains, we explore the dual symmetries after gauging and their potential new spatial modulations. We establish sufficient conditions for the existence of an isomorphism between the modulated symmetries and their dual, naturally implemented by lattice reflections. For instance, in systems of prime qudits, translation invariance guarantees this isomorphism. For non-prime qudits, we show using techniques from ring theory that this isomorphism can also exist, although it is not guaranteed by lattice translation symmetry alone. From this isomorphism, we identify new Kramers-Wannier dualities and construct related non-invertible reflection symmetry operators using sequential quantum circuits. Notably, this non-invertible reflection symmetry exists even when the system lacks ordinary reflection symmetry. Throughout the paper, we illustrate these results using various simple toy models.

  22 citations

• Ballistic conductance with and without disorder in a boundary-driven XXZ spin chain

  Adam J. McRoberts, Roderich Moessner

  SciPost Phys. 18, 015 (2025) · published 14 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Motivated by recent experiments on Google's sycamore NISQ platform on the spin transport resulting from a non-unitary periodic boundary drive of an XXZ chain, we study a classical variant thereof by a combination of analytical and numerical means. We find the classical model reproduces the quantum results in remarkable detail, and provides an analytical handle on the nature and shape of the spin transport's three distinct regimes: ballistic (easy-plane), subdiffusive (isotropic) and insulating (easy-axis). Further, we show that this phenomenology is remarkably robust to the inclusion of bond disorder – albeit that the transient dynamics approaching the steady states differs qualitatively between the clean and disordered cases – providing an accessible instance of ballistic transport in a disordered setting.