We present the Born-Markov approximated Redfield quantum master equation (RQME) description for an open system of non-interacting particles (bosons or fermions) on an arbitrary lattice of N sites in any dimension and weakly connected to multiple reservoirs at different temperatures and chemical potentials. The RQME can be reduced to the Lindblad equation, of various forms, by making further approximations. By studying the N = 2 case, we show that RQME gives results which agree with exact analytical results for steady state properties and with exact numerics for time-dependent properties, over a wide range of parameters. In comparison, the Lindblad equations have a limited domain of validity in non-equilibrium. We conclude that it is indeed justified to use microscopically derived full RQME to go beyond the limitations of Lindblad equations in out-of-equilibrium systems. We also derive closed form analytical results for out-of-equilibrium time dynamics of two-point correlation functions. These results explicitly show the approach to steady state and thermalization. These results are experimentally relevant for cold atoms, cavity QED and far-from-equilibrium quantum dot experiments. PACS numbers:arXiv:1511.03778v4 [cond-mat.stat-mech]

Charge qubits can be created and manipulated in solid-state double-quantum-dot (DQD) platforms. Typically, these systems are strongly affected by quantum noise stemming from coupling to substrate phonons. This is usually assumed to lead to decoherence towards steady states that are diagonal in the energy eigenbasis. In this letter we show, to the contrary, that due to the presence of phonons the equilibrium steady state of the DQD charge qubit may be engineered to display coherence in the energy eigenbasis. The magnitude of the coherence can be controlled by tuning the DQD parameters and regimes of high purity maybe found. In addition, we show that the steady-state coherence can be used to drive an auxiliary cavity mode coupled to the DQD. arXiv:1906.06271v1 [cond-mat.mes-hall]

We study the high temperature transport behavior of the Aubry-André-Harper (AAH) model, both in the isolated thermodynamic limit and in the open system. At the critical point of the AAH model, we find hints of super-diffusive behavior from the scaling of spread of an initially localized wavepacket. On the other hand, when connected to two baths with different chemical potentials at the two ends, we find that the critical point shows clear sub-diffusive scaling of current with system size. We provide an explanation of this by showing that the current scaling with system-size is entirely governed by the behavior of the single particle eigenfunctions at the boundary sites where baths are attached. We also look at the particle density profile in non-equilibrium steady state of the open system when the two baths are at different chemical potentials. We find that the particle density profile has distinctly different behavior in the delocalized, critical and localized phases of the AAH model. arXiv:1702.05228v3 [cond-mat.mes-hall]

We present a methodology to simulate the quantum thermodynamics of thermal machines which are built from an interacting working medium in contact with fermionic reservoirs at a fixed temperature and chemical potential. Our method works at a finite temperature, beyond linear response and weak systemreservoir coupling, and allows for nonquadratic interactions in the working medium. The method uses mesoscopic reservoirs, continuously damped toward thermal equilibrium, in order to represent continuum baths and a novel tensor-network algorithm to simulate the steady-state thermodynamics. Using the example of a quantum-dot heat engine, we demonstrate that our technique replicates the well-known Landauer-Büttiker theory for efficiency and power. We then go beyond the quadratic limit to demonstrate the capability of our method by simulating a three-site machine with nonquadratic interactions. Remarkably, we find that such interactions lead to power enhancement, without being detrimental to the efficiency. Furthermore, we demonstrate the capability of our method to tackle complex many-body systems by extracting the superdiffusive exponent for high-temperature transport in the isotropic Heisenberg model. Finally, we discuss transport in the gapless phase of the anisotropic Heisenberg model at a finite temperature and its connection to charge conjugation parity, going beyond the predictions of single-site boundary driving configurations.

We investigate and map out the non-equilibrium phase diagram of a generalization of the well known Aubry-André-Harper (AAH) model. This generalized AAH (GAAH) model is known to have a single-particle mobility edge which also has an additional self-dual property akin to that of the critical point of AAH model. By calculating the population imbalance, we get hints of a rich phase diagram. We also find a fascinating connection between single particle wavefunctions near the mobility edge of GAAH model and the wavefunctions of the critical AAH model. By placing this model far-from-equilibrium with the aid of two baths, we investigate the open system transport via system size scaling of non-equilibrium steady state (NESS) current, calculated by fully exact non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formalism. The critical point of the AAH model now generalizes to a 'critical' line separating regions of ballistic and localized transport. Like the critical point of AAH model, current scales sub-diffusively with system size on the 'critical' line (I ∼ N −2±0.1 ). However, remarkably, the scaling exponent on this line is distinctly different from that obtained for the critical AAH model (where I ∼ N −1.4±0.05 ). All these results can be understood from the above-mentioned connection between states near mobility edge of GAAH model and those of critical AAH model. A very interesting high temperature non-equilibrium phase diagram of the GAAH model emerges from our calculations.Introduction: Anderson localization is a phenomenon seen in a wide class of systems [1][2][3]. It refers to spatial localization of energy eigenstates in the presence of uncorrelated disorder and in absence of interactions. In one and two dimensions, even a small amount of disorder makes all energy eigenstates localized. In three dimensions, beyond a critical strength of disorder, there occurs a mobility edge [4] separating localized and extended eigenstates. Understanding the physics of such a three dimensional system from a microscopic model is difficult. As a result, it is of interest to develop and study, theoretically and experimentally, lower dimensional models with a mobility edge.

It is very common in the literature to write a Markovian quantum master equation in Lindblad form to describe a system with multiple degrees of freedom and weakly connected to multiple thermal baths which can, in general, be at different temperatures and chemical potentials. However, the microscopically derived quantum master equation up to leading order in a system-bath coupling is of the so-called Redfield form, which is known to not preserve complete positivity in most cases. Additional approximations to the Redfield equation are required to obtain a Lindblad form. We lay down some fundamental requirements for any further approximations to the Redfield equation, which, if violated, leads to physical inconsistencies such as inaccuracies in the leading order populations and coherences in the energy eigenbasis, violation of thermalization, and violation of local conservation laws at the nonequilibrium steady state. We argue that one or more of these conditions will generically be violated in all the weak system-bath-coupling Lindblad descriptions existing in the literature to our knowledge. As an example, we study the recently derived universal Lindblad equation and use these conditions to show the violation of local conservation laws due to inaccurate coherences but accurate populations in the energy eigenbasis. Finally, we exemplify our analytical results numerically in an interacting open quantum spin system.

Open classical and quantum systems with effective parity-time (PT) symmetry, over the past five years, have shown tremendous promise for advances in lasers, sensing, and nonreciprocal devices. And yet, how such effective PT-symmetric non-Hermitian models emerge out of Hermitian quantum mechanics is not well understood. Here, starting from a fully Hermitian microscopic Hamiltonian description, we show that a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian emerges naturally in a double-quantum-dot (DQD) circuit-QED setup, which can be controllably tuned to the PT-symmetric point. This effective Hamiltonian governs the dynamics of two coupled circuit-QED cavities with a voltage-biased DQD in one of them. Our analysis also reveals the effect of quantum fluctuations on the PT-symmetric system. The PT transition is, then, observed both in the dynamics of cavity observables as well as via an input-output experiment. As a simple application of the PT transition in this setup, we show that loss-induced enhancement of amplification and lasing can be observed in the coupled cavities. By comparing our results with two conventional local Lindblad equations, we demonstrate the utility and limitations of the latter. Our results pave the way for an on-chip realization of a potentially scalable non-Hermitian system with a gain medium in the quantum regime, as well as its potential applications for quantum technology.

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