Non-Hermitian degeneracies of Lindblad generators (Liouvillian exceptional points) can induce non-exponential relaxation and higher-order poles in dynamical response functions. A collective spin coupled to a polarized Markovian bath exhibits an \emph{exceptional spectral phase} in which defective Liouvillian modes imprint super-Lorentzian features in frequency-resolved spectra. We compute the emission spectrum via the Liouvillian resolvent, identify symmetry-sector selection rules, and demonstrate that exceptional-point signatures are strongly state-dependent: they are suppressed in steady-state fluorescence yet become unambiguous for generic (infinite-temperature or random) initial states. Our results provide an experimentally accessible spectroscopic diagnostic of many-body Liouvillian exceptional phases and clarify when steady-state emission can (and cannot) reveal them.
Open quantum systems interacting with an environment exhibit dynamics described by the combination of dissipation and coherent Hamiltonian evolution. Taken together, these effects are captured by a Liouvillian superoperator. The degeneracies of the (generically non-Hermitian) Liouvillian are exceptional points, which are associated with critical dynamics as the system approaches steady state. We use a superconducting transmon circuit coupled to an engineered environment to observe two different types of Liouvillian exceptional points that arise either from the interplay of energy loss and deco…
Liouvillian Exceptional Points in Quantum Brickwork Circuits
Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana（卢布尔雅那大学数学物理学院）；Department of Physics, University of Wuppertal（伍珀塔尔大学物理系）；Dipartimento di Fisica “E.R. Caianiello”, and INFN Sezione di Napoli - Gruppo Collegato di Salerno, Università di Salerno（萨莱诺大学E.R.卡伊涅洛物理系及意大利国家核物理研究所那不勒斯分部萨莱诺协作组）
Viewing a quantum thermal machine as a non-Hermitian quantum system, we characterize in full generality its analytical time-dependent dynamics by deriving the spectrum of its non-Hermitian Liouvillian for an arbitrary initial state. We show that the thermal machine features a number of Liouvillian exceptional points (EPs) for experimentally realistic parameters, in particular a third-dorder exceptional point that leaves signatures both in short and long-time regimes. Remarkably, we demonstrate that this EP corresponds to a regime of critical decay for the quantum thermal machine towards its st…
Equivalent approaches to determine eigenfrequencies of the Liouvillians of open quantum systems are discussed using the solution of the Heisenberg-Langevin equations and the corresponding equations for operator moments. A simple damped two-level atom is analyzed to demonstrate the equivalence of both approaches. The suggested method is used to reveal the structure as well as eigenfrequencies of the dynamics matrices of the corresponding equations of motion and their degeneracies for interacting bosonic modes described by general quadratic Hamiltonians. Quantum Liouvillian exceptional and diabo…
Multi-block exceptional points in open quantum systems
Institute for Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, University of Würzburg（维尔茨堡大学理论物理与天体物理研究所）；Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat（维尔茨堡-德累斯顿卓越集群 ctd.qmat）
Recent experiments have demonstrated the feasibility of exploiting spectral singularities in open quantum and wave systems, so-called exceptional points, for sensors with strongly enhanced sensitivity. Here, we study theoretically the influence of classical parametric noise on the performance of such sensors. Within a Lindblad-type formalism for stochastic Hamiltonians we discuss the resolvability of frequency splittings and the dynamical stability of the sensor, and show that these properties are interrelated. Of central importance are the different features of exceptional points in the spect…
Exceptional points (EPs) are degeneracies of classical and quantum open systems, which are studied in many areas of physics including optics, optoelectronics, plasmonics, and condensed matter physics. In the semiclassical regime, open systems can be described by phenomenological effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonians (NHHs) capturing the effects of gain and loss in terms of imaginary fields. The EPs that characterize the spectra of such Hamiltonians (HEPs) describe the time evolution of a system without quantum jumps. It is well known that a full quantum treatment describing more generic dynamic…
Usually, when investigating exceptional points (EPs) of an open Markovian bosonic system, one deals with spectral degeneracies of a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian (NHH), which can correctly describe the system dynamics only in the semiclassical regime. A recently proposed quantum Liouvillian framework enables to completely determine the dynamical properties of such systems and their EPs (referred to as Liouvillian EPs, or LEPs) in the quantum regime by taking into account the effects of quantum jumps, which are ignored in the NHH formalism. Moreover, the symmetry and eigenfrequency spectrum of the …
Quantum heat engines are expected to outperform the classical counterparts due to quantum coherences involved. Here we experimentally execute a single-ion quantum heat engine and demonstrate, for the first time, the dynamics and the enhanced performance of the heat engine originating from the Liouvillian exceptional points (LEPs). In addition to the topological effects related to LEPs, we focus on thermodynamic effects, which can be understood by the Landau-Zener-Stuckelberg process under decoherence. We witness a positive net work from the quantum heat engine if the heat engine cycle dynamica…
Exceptional points (EPs) correspond to degeneracies of open systems. These are attracting much interest in optics, optoelectronics, plasmonics, and condensed matter physics. In the classical and semiclassical approaches, Hamiltonian EPs (HEPs) are usually defined as degeneracies of non-Hermitian Hamiltonians such that at least two eigenfrequencies are identical and the corresponding eigenstates coalesce. HEPs result from continuous, mostly slow, nonunitary evolution without quantum jumps. Clearly, quantum jumps should be included in a fully quantum approach to make it equivalent to, e.g., the …
In the past few decades, many works have been devoted to the study of exceptional points (EPs), i.e., exotic degeneracies of non-Hermitian systems. The usual approach in those studies involves the introduction of a phenomenological effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonian (NHH), where the gain and losses are incorporated as the imaginary frequencies of fields and from which the Hamiltonian EPs (HEPs) are derived. Although this approach can provide valid equations of motion for the fields in the classical limit, its application in the derivation of EPs in the quantum regime is questionable. Recently…
A quantum thermal machine is an open quantum system coupled to hot and cold thermal baths. Thus, its dynamics can be well understood using the concepts and tools from non-Hermitian quantum systems. A hallmark of non-Hermiticity is the existence of exceptional points where the eigenvalues of a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian or an Liouvillian superoperator and their associated eigenvectors coalesce. Here, we report the experimental realisation of a single-ion heat engine and demonstrate the effect of the Liouvillian exceptional points on the dynamics and the performance of a quantum heat engine. Our …
The state of a quantum system may be steered towards a predesignated target state, employing a sequence of weak $\textit{blind}$ measurements (where the detector's readouts are traced out). Here we analyze the steering of a two-level system using the interplay of a system Hamiltonian and weak measurements, and show that $\textit{any}$ pure or mixed state can be targeted. We show that the optimization of such a steering protocol is underlain by the presence of Liouvillian exceptional points. More specifically, for high purity target states, optimal steering implies purely relaxational dynamics …
We study a model of a quantum collective spin weakly coupled to a spin-polarized Markovian environment and find that the spectrum is divided into two regions that we name normal and exceptional Liouvillian spectral phases. In the thermodynamic limit, the exceptional spectral phase displays the unique property of being made up exclusively of second order exceptional points. As a consequence, the evolution of any initial density matrix populating this region is slowed down and cannot be described by a linear combination of exponential decays. This phase is separated from the normal one by a crit…
Exceptional points, resulting from non-Hermitian degeneracies, have the potential to enhance the capabilities of quantum sensing. Thus, finding exceptional points in different quantum systems is vital for developing such future sensing devices. Taking advantage of the enhanced light-matter interactions in a confined volume on a metal nanoparticle surface, here we theoretically demonstrate the existence of exceptional points in a system consisting of quantum emitters coupled to a metal nanoparticle of subwavelength scale. By using an analytical quantum electrodynamics approach, exceptional poin…
Motivated by recent prototypes of engineered atomic spin devices, we study a fully connected system of $N$ spins $1/2$, modeled by the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick (LMG) model of a collective spin $s=N/2$ in the presence of Markovian dissipation processes. We determine and classify the different phases of the dissipative LMG model with Markovian dissipation, including the properties of the steady-state and the dynamic behavior in the asymptotic long-time regime. Employing variational methods and a systematic approach based on the Holstein-Primakoff mapping, we determine the phase diagram and the spect…
We consider a collective quantum spin-$s$ in contact with Markovian spin-polarized baths. Using a conserved super-operator charge, a differential representation of the Liouvillian is constructed to find its exact spectrum and eigen-modes. We study the spectral properties of the model in the large-$s$ limit using a semi-classical quantization condition and show that the spectral density may diverge along certain curves in the complex plane. We exploit our exact solution to characterize steady-state properties, in particular at the discontinuous phase transition that arises for unpolarized envir…
We study the all-to-all connected $XYZ$ (anisotropic-Heisenberg) spin model with local and collective dissipations, comparing the results of mean field theory with the solution of the Lindblad quantum evolution. Leveraging the permutational symmetry of the model [N. Shammah et al., Phys Rev. A 98, 063815 (2018)], we find exactly (up to numerical precision) the steady state up to $N=95$ spins. We characterize criticality, studying, as a function of the number of spins $N$, the spin structure factor, the magnetization, the Liouvillian gap and the Von Neumann entropy of the steady state. Exploiti…
Controllable non-Hermitian topology in a dynamically protected cat qubit
Fujian Key Laboratory of Quantum Information and Quantum Optics, Fuzhou University（福建量子信息与量子光学重点实验室，福州大学）；Department of Physics, Fuzhou University（福州大学物理系）；School of Physics and Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Longyan University（龙岩大学物理与机电工程学院）；Hefei National Laboratory（合肥国家实验室）
Recently, there has been intense research in proposing and developing various methods for constructing high-order exceptional points (EPs) in dissipative systems. These EPs can possess a number of intriguing properties related to, e.g., chiral transport and enhanced sensitivity. Previous proposals to realize non-Hermitian Hamiltonians (NHHs) with high-order EPs have been mainly based on either direct construction of spatial networks of coupled modes or utilization of synthetic dimensions, e.g., of mapping spatial lattices to time or photon-number space. Both methods rely on the construction of…
Recently defect production was investigated during non-unitary dynamics due to non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. By ramping up the non-Hermitian coupling linearly in time through an exceptional point, defects are produced in much the same way as approaching a Hermitian critical point. A generalized Kibble--Zurek scaling accounted for the ensuing scaling of the defect density in terms of the speed of the drive and the corresponding critical exponents. Here we extend this setting by adding the recycling term and considering the full Lindbladian time evolution of the problem with quantum jumps. We find …
The dynamics of an isolated quantum system is coherent and unitary. Weak coupling to the environment leads to decoherence, which is traditionally modeled with a Lindblad equation for the system's density matrix. Starting from a pure state, such a system approaches a steady state (mixed or otherwise) in an underdamped or overdamped manner. This transition occurs at an eigenvalue degeneracy of a Lindblad superoperator, called an exceptional point (EP), where corresponding eigenvectors coalesce. Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in creating exceptional points in a truly quantum doma…
