No Arabic abstract
Dependent symmetries, symmetries that depend on the situation of the subsystem in a larger closed system, are explored by looking at simple examples. This is a new kind of symmetry in the open quantum dynamics of a subsystem Each symmetry implies a particular form for the results of the open dynamics. The forms exhibit the symmetries very simply. It is shown directly, without assuming anything about the symmetry, that the dynamics produces the form, but knowing the symmetry and the form it implies can reduce what needs to be done to work out the dynamics; pieces can be deduced from the symmetry rather that calculated from the dynamics. Symmetries can be related to constants of the motion in new ways. A quantity might be a dependent constant of the motion, constant only for particular situations of the subsystem in the larger system. In particular, a generator of dependent symmetries could represent a quantity that is a dependent constant of the motion for the same situations as for the symmetries. The examples present a variety of possibilities. Sometimes a generator of dependent symmetries does represent a dependent constant of the motion. Sometimes it does not. Sometimes no quantity is a dependent constant of the motion. Sometimes every quantity is.
Simple examples are used to introduce and examine symmetries of open quantum dynamics that can be described by unitary operators. For the Hamiltonian dynamics of an entire closed system, the symmetry takes the expected form which, when the Hamiltonian has a lower bound, says that the unitary symmetry operator commutes with the Hamiltonian operator. There are many more symmetries that are only for the open dynamics of a subsystem. Examples show how these symmetries alone can reveal properties of the dynamics and reduce what needs to be done to work out the dynamics. A symmetry of the open dynamics of a subsystem can even imply properties of the dynamics for the entire system that are not implied by the symmetries of the dynamics of the entire system. The symmetries are generally not related to constants of the motion for the open dynamics of the subsystem. There are many symmetries that cannot be seen in the Schrodinger picture as symmetries of dynamical maps of density matrices for the subsystem. There are symmetries of the open dynamics of a subsystem that depend only on the dynamics. In the simplest examples, these are also symmetries of the dynamics of the entire system. There are many more symmetries, of a new kind, that also depend on correlations, or absence of correlations, between the subsystem and the rest of the entire system, or on the state of the rest of the entire system.
We extend the concept of superadiabatic dynamics, or transitionless quantum driving, to quantum open systems whose evolution is governed by a master equation in the Lindblad form. We provide the general framework needed to determine the control strategy required to achieve superadiabaticity. We apply our formalism to two examples consisting of a two-level system coupled to environments with time-dependent bath operators.
We derive a general scheme to obtain quantum fluctuation relations for dynamical observables in open quantum systems. For concreteness we consider Markovian non-unitary dynamics that is unraveled in terms of quantum jump trajectories, and exploit techniques from the theory of large deviations like the tilted ensemble and the Doob transform. Our results here generalise to open quantum systems fluctuation relations previously obtained for classical Markovian systems, and add to the vast literature on fluctuation relations in the quantum domain, but without resorting to the standard two-point measurement scheme. We illustrate our findings with three examples in order to highlight and discuss the main features of our general result.
The effect of PT-symmetry breaking in coupled systems with balanced gain and loss has recently attracted considerable attention and has been demonstrated in various photonic, electrical and mechanical systems in the classical regime. Here we generalize the definition of PT symmetry to finite-dimensional open quantum systems, which are described by a Markovian master equation. Specifically, we show that the invariance of this master equation under a certain symmetry transformation implies the existence of stationary states with preserved and broken parity symmetry. As the dimension of the Hilbert space grows, the transition between these two limiting phases becomes increasingly sharp and the classically expected PT-symmetry breaking transition is recovered. This quantum-to-classical correspondence allows us to establish a common theoretical framework to identify and accurately describe PT-symmetry breaking effects in a large variety of physical systems, operated both in the classical and quantum regimes.
Symmetry-breaking transitions are a well-understood phenomenon of closed quantum systems in quantum optics, condensed matter, and high energy physics. However, symmetry breaking in open systems is less thoroughly understood, in part due to the richer steady-state and symmetry structure that such systems possess. For the prototypical open system---a Lindbladian---a unitary symmetry can be imposed in a weak or a strong way. We characterize the possible $mathbb{Z}_n$ symmetry breaking transitions for both cases. In the case of $mathbb{Z}_2$, a weak-symmetry-broken phase guarantees at most a classical bit steady-state structure, while a strong-symmetry-broken phase admits a partially-protected steady-state qubit. Viewing photonic cat qubits through the lens of strong-symmetry breaking, we show how to dynamically recover the logical information after any gap-preserving strong-symmetric error; such recovery becomes perfect exponentially quickly in the number of photons. Our study forges a connection between driven-dissipative phase transitions and error correction.