Fluctuation-Induced Quantum Zeno Effect

An isolated quantum gas with a localized loss features a nonmonotonic behavior of the particle loss rate as an incarnation of the quantum Zeno effect, as recently shown in experiments with cold atomic gases. While this effect can be understood in terms of local, microscopic physics, we show that novel many-body effects emerge when nonlinear gapless quantum fluctuations become important. To this end, we investigate the effect of a local dissipative impurity on a one-dimensional gas of interacting fermions. We show that the escape probability for modes close to the Fermi energy vanishes for an arbitrary strength of the dissipation. In addition, transport properties across the impurity are qualitatively modified, similarly to the Kane-Fisher barrier problem. We substantiate these findings using both a microscopic model of spinless fermions and a Luttinger liquid description.