Nonequilibrium effective field theory for absorbing state phase transitions in driven open quantum spin systems

Phase transitions to absorbing states are among the simplest examples of critical phenomena out of equilibrium. The characteristic feature of these models is the presence of a fluctuationless configuration which the dynamics cannot leave, which has proved a rather stringent requirement in experiment...

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Main Authors: Buchhold, Michael, Everest, Benjamin, Marcuzzi, Matteo, Lesanovsky, Igor, Diehl, Sebastian
Format: Article
Published: American Physical Society 2017
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Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41013/
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author Buchhold, Michael
Everest, Benjamin
Marcuzzi, Matteo
Lesanovsky, Igor
Diehl, Sebastian
author_facet Buchhold, Michael
Everest, Benjamin
Marcuzzi, Matteo
Lesanovsky, Igor
Diehl, Sebastian
author_sort Buchhold, Michael
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Phase transitions to absorbing states are among the simplest examples of critical phenomena out of equilibrium. The characteristic feature of these models is the presence of a fluctuationless configuration which the dynamics cannot leave, which has proved a rather stringent requirement in experiments. Recently, a proposal to seek such transitions in highly tuneable systems of cold atomic gases offers to probe this physics and, at the same time, to investigate the robustness of these transitions to quantum coherent effects. Here we specifically focus on the interplay between classical and quantum fluctuations in a simple driven open quantum model which, in the classical limit, reproduces a contact process, which is known to undergo a continuous transition in the "directed percolation" universality class. We derive an effective long-wavelength field theory for the present class of open spin systems and show that, due to quantum fluctuations, the nature of the transition changes from second to first order, passing through a bicritical point which appears to belong instead to the "tricritical directed percolation" class.
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spelling nottingham-410132020-05-04T18:29:19Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41013/ Nonequilibrium effective field theory for absorbing state phase transitions in driven open quantum spin systems Buchhold, Michael Everest, Benjamin Marcuzzi, Matteo Lesanovsky, Igor Diehl, Sebastian Phase transitions to absorbing states are among the simplest examples of critical phenomena out of equilibrium. The characteristic feature of these models is the presence of a fluctuationless configuration which the dynamics cannot leave, which has proved a rather stringent requirement in experiments. Recently, a proposal to seek such transitions in highly tuneable systems of cold atomic gases offers to probe this physics and, at the same time, to investigate the robustness of these transitions to quantum coherent effects. Here we specifically focus on the interplay between classical and quantum fluctuations in a simple driven open quantum model which, in the classical limit, reproduces a contact process, which is known to undergo a continuous transition in the "directed percolation" universality class. We derive an effective long-wavelength field theory for the present class of open spin systems and show that, due to quantum fluctuations, the nature of the transition changes from second to first order, passing through a bicritical point which appears to belong instead to the "tricritical directed percolation" class. American Physical Society 2017-01-27 Article PeerReviewed Buchhold, Michael, Everest, Benjamin, Marcuzzi, Matteo, Lesanovsky, Igor and Diehl, Sebastian (2017) Nonequilibrium effective field theory for absorbing state phase transitions in driven open quantum spin systems. Physical Review B, 95 . 014308. ISSN 2469-9969 Absorbing state phase transitions Open quantum systems Non-equilibrium universality http://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.95.014308 doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.95.014308 doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.95.014308
spellingShingle Absorbing state phase transitions
Open quantum systems
Non-equilibrium universality
Buchhold, Michael
Everest, Benjamin
Marcuzzi, Matteo
Lesanovsky, Igor
Diehl, Sebastian
Nonequilibrium effective field theory for absorbing state phase transitions in driven open quantum spin systems
title Nonequilibrium effective field theory for absorbing state phase transitions in driven open quantum spin systems
title_full Nonequilibrium effective field theory for absorbing state phase transitions in driven open quantum spin systems
title_fullStr Nonequilibrium effective field theory for absorbing state phase transitions in driven open quantum spin systems
title_full_unstemmed Nonequilibrium effective field theory for absorbing state phase transitions in driven open quantum spin systems
title_short Nonequilibrium effective field theory for absorbing state phase transitions in driven open quantum spin systems
title_sort nonequilibrium effective field theory for absorbing state phase transitions in driven open quantum spin systems
topic Absorbing state phase transitions
Open quantum systems
Non-equilibrium universality
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41013/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41013/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41013/