When irrelevance governs: dissipation-regression scaling in open quantum criticality

Abstract:The real-time dynamics of quantum phase transitions in open systems coupled to finite-temperature environments sits at the heart of contemporary condensed-matter and quantum-information science. Here, invoking a Schwinger-Keldysh formalism, we uncover that, within the coherence-dominated regime of critical real-time evolution, a dissipative coupling deemed naively irrelevant determines, counterintuitively, the longest timescale that holds sway. Possessing a well-defined temporal scaling dimension, it engenders a novel dissipation-regression scaling that systematically reproduces the unusual Kibble-Zurek scaling and relaxation observed in recent numerical studies. By contrast, dissipation-dominated dynamics behaves qualitatively differently. There, furthermore, we show that the discretized and diagonalized formulations of the same open quantum Ising chain realize distinct universality classes.

10 pages, no figure. Substantially extended from 2607.11206v1

Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)

arXiv:2610.13033 [quant-ph]

(or arXiv:2610.13033v1 [quant-ph] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2610.13033 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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