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Non-stationary coherent quantum many-body dynamics through dissipation
Berislav Buča1, Joseph Tindall2, Dieter Jaksch3,4
1Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PU, UK. berislav.buca@physics.ox.ac.uk.
Nature Communications
|April 17, 2019
Summary
Researchers discovered conditions where quantum many-body systems avoid stationary states due to dissipation. This leads to a novel dissipative quantum time crystal, potentially engineerable with ultracold atoms.
Area of Science:
- Quantum physics
- Statistical mechanics
- Condensed matter physics
Background:
- Quantum systems are expected to reach stationary states over time, a principle fundamental to statistical physics.
- The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis explains this for isolated systems, while environmental interactions are thought to explore all phase space.
- Decoherence-free subspaces are known exceptions, but have been limited to small systems.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify general conditions enabling dissipation to prevent quantum many-body systems from reaching stationary states.
- To explore controllable long-time non-stationarity beyond current dissipative quantum state engineering.
- To investigate the creation of a dissipative quantum time crystal.
Main Methods:
- Identifying simple and generic conditions for non-stationarity in dissipative quantum many-body systems.
- Analyzing coherent and oscillatory evolution in these systems.
- Proposing engineering of such dynamics using fermionic ultracold atoms in optical lattices.
Main Results:
- Demonstrated that dissipation can prevent quantum many-body systems from reaching a stationary state.
- Introduced the concept of a dissipative quantum time crystal, a novel non-stationary phase.
- Established conditions for controllable long-time non-stationarity.
Conclusions:
- Dissipation can lead to persistent, complex dynamics in quantum many-body systems, defying the typical approach to stationarity.
- The identified phenomena represent a dissipative analogue of quantum time crystals.
- These dynamics may be experimentally realized using ultracold fermionic atoms.
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