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Probabilistic cellular automata provide a simple framework for the exploration of classical nonequilibrium processes. Recently, quantum cellular automata have been proposed that rely on the propagation of a one-dimensional quantum state along a fictitious discrete time dimension via the sequential application of quantum gates. The resulting $(1+1)$-dimensional space-time structure makes these automata special cases of feed-forward quantum neural networks. Here we show how asynchronism -- introduced via non-commuting gates -- impacts on the collective nonequilibrium behavior of quantum cellular automata. We illustrate this through a simple model, whose synchronous version implements a contact process and features a nonequilibrium phase transition in the directed percolation universality class. Non-commuting quantum gates lead to an "asynchronism transition", i.e. a sudden qualitative change in the phase transition behavior once a certain degree of asynchronicity is surpassed. Our results show how quantum effects may lead to abrupt changes of non-equilibrium dynamics, which may be relevant for understanding the role of quantum correlations in neural networks., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Supplemental material of 3 pages

We employ $(1 + 1)$-dimensional quantum cellular automata to study the evolution of entanglement and coherence near criticality in quantum systems that display non-equilibrium steady-state phase transitions. This construction permits direct access to the entire space-time structure of the underlying non-equilibrium dynamics. It contains the full ensemble of classical trajectories and also allows for the analysis of unconventional correlations, such as entanglement in the time direction between the "present" and the "past". Close to criticality, the dynamics of these correlations - which we quantify through the second-order Renyi entropy - displays power-law behavior on its approach to stationarity. Our analysis is based on quantum generalizations of classical non-equilibrium systems: the Domany-Kinzel cellular automaton and the Bagnoli-Boccara-Rechtman model, for which we provide estimates for the critical exponents related to the classical and quantum components of the entropy. Our study shows that $(1 + 1)$-dimensional quantum cellular automata permit an intriguing perspective on the nature of classical and quantum correlations in out-of-equilibrium systems., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Supplementary Material of 7 pages, 2 figures

Classical (1 + 1)D cellular automata, as for instance Domany-Kinzel cellular automata, are paradigmatic systems for the study of non-equilibrium phenomena. Such systems evolve in discrete time-steps, and are thus free of time-discretisation errors. Moreover, they display non-equilibrium phase transitions which can be studied by simulating the evolution of an initial seed. At any finite time, this has support only on a finite light-cone. Thus, essentially numerically exact simulations free of finite-size errors or boundary effects are possible, leading to high accuracy estimates of critical exponents. Here, we show how similar advantages can be gained in the quantum regime: The many-body critical dynamics occurring in (1 + 1)D quantum cellular automata with an absorbing state can be studied directly on an infinite lattice when starting from seed initial conditions. This can be achieved efficiently by simulating the dynamics of an associated one-dimensional, non-unitary quantum cellular automaton using tensor networks. We apply our method to a model introduced recently and find accurate values for universal exponents, suggesting that this approach can be a powerful tool for precisely studying non-equilibrium universal physics in quantum systems. Introduction.-One of the most intriguing aspects of non-equilibrium phase transitions (NEPTs) is the emergence of universal behaviour: systems with very different microscopic details can display the same scaling laws at a macroscopic scale, both for key stationary and dynam-ical quantities. As in equilibrium, an understanding of such critical features comes from their classification into universality classes [1-3]. Each class groups systems with the same emergent behaviour, as identified by the values of parameters known as critical exponents. However, in contrast to equilibrium settings, even the simplest critical non-equilibrium systems, e.g. those featuring absorbing state phase transitions in the directed percolation (DP) universality class, are not analytically solvable and their exponents cannot be determined exactly.

© 2020 American Physical Society. Dicke-like models can describe a variety of physical systems, such as atoms in a cavity or vibrating ion chains. In equilibrium these systems often feature a radical change in their behavior when switching from weak to strong spin-boson interaction. This usually manifests in a transition from a "dark"to a "superradiant"phase. However, understanding the out-of-equilibrium physics of these models is extremely challenging, and even more so for strong spin-boson coupling. Here we show that the nonequilibrium strongly interacting multimode Dicke model can mimic some fundamental properties of an associative memory - a system which permits the recognition of patterns, such as letters of an alphabet. Patterns are encoded in the couplings between spins and bosons, and we discuss the dynamics of the spins from the perspective of pattern retrieval in associative memory models. We identify two phases, a "paramagnetic"and a "ferromagnetic"one, and a crossover behavior between these regimes. The "ferromagnetic"phase is reminiscent of pattern retrieval. We highlight similarities and differences with the thermal dynamics of a Hopfield associative memory and show that indeed elements of "machine learning behavior"emerge in the strongly coupled multimode Dicke model.

Driven diffusive systems may undergo phase transitions to sustain atypical values of the current. This leads in some cases to symmetry-broken space-time trajectories which enhance the probability of such fluctuations. Here, we shed light on both the macroscopic large deviation properties and the microscopic origin of such spontaneous symmetry breaking in the open weakly asymmetric exclusion process. By studying the joint fluctuations of the current and a collective order parameter, we uncover the full dynamical phase diagram for arbitrary boundary driving, which is reminiscent of a Z2 symmetry-breaking transition. The associated joint large deviation function becomes nonconvex below the critical point, where a Maxwell-like violation of the additivity principle is observed. At the microscopic level, the dynamical phase transition is linked to an emerging degeneracy of the ground state of the microscopic generator, from which the optimal trajectories in the symmetry-broken phase follow. In addition, we observe this symmetry-breaking phenomenon in extensive rare-event simulations, confirming our macroscopic and microscopic results.

Large dynamical fluctuations—atypical realizations of the dynamics sustained over long periods of time—can play a fundamental role in determining the properties of collective behavior of both classical and quantum nonequilibrium systems. Rare dynamical fluctuations, however, occur with a probability that often decays exponentially in their time extent, thus making them difficult to be directly observed and exploited in experiments. Here, using methods from dynamical large deviations, we explain how rare dynamics of a given (Markovian) open quantum system can always be obtained from the typical realizations of an alternative (also Markovian) system. The correspondence between these two sets of realizations can be used to engineer and control open quantum systems with a desired statistics “on demand.” We illustrate these ideas by studying the photon emission behavior of a three-qubit system which displays a sharp dynamical crossover between active and inactive dynamical phases.

Due to the large amount of microscopic constituents, sensible information that can be gathered about many- body systems concerns usually the behaviour of collective observables; among them, surely average observables, like the mean magnetization in quantum spin chains, but also fluctuations around mean-values. Average operators over all particles are defined with a scaling proportional to the inverse number N of considered particles; in the large N limit, the emergent collective operators form a classical algebra, with no footprints of the microscopic quantum structure they result from. On the contrary, another class of collective observables, the so-called fluctuation operators defined with a scaling proportional to square root of N , has been proved, by means of quantum central limit theorems, to retain quantum properties, giving rise to a Gaussian Bosonic system. These collective observables may thus be interpreted as witnesses of a mesoscopic behaviour positioned at the interface between macroscopic, classical behaviours and microscopic quantum ones, providing a suitable framework where to look for collective quantum phenomena in many-body systems. In this thesis we studied the dynamical behaviour of these fluctuation operators, when the many-body mesoscopic system is considered not to be isolated, but in a weak interaction with a larger environment; this is the most common situation encountered in actual experiments, where these systems can never be thought of as completely isolated from their thermal surroundings. Under some conditions on the dynamical generator, we showed that such dissipative evolution of fluctuations exists and is such that it preserves their Gaussian character. By means of a particular example, we also demonstrated that two non-interacting many-body systems can become entangled, at the level of their fluctuation operators, through the presence of a common environment usually responsible for decoherence and emergence of classical behaviours. Furthermore, the behaviour of such correlations has a neat dependence on the temperature of the heat bath, displaying a sort of phase transition, witnessed by the existence of a finite critical temperature above which entanglement is not possible.

One way to look for complex behaviours in many-body quantum systems is to let the number $N$ of degrees of freedom become large and focus upon collective observables. Mean-field quantities scaling as $1/N$ tend to commute, whence complexity at the quantum level can only be inherited from complexity at the classical level. Instead, fluctuations of microscopic observables scale as $1/\sqrt{N}$ and exhibit collective Bosonic features, typical of a mesoscopic regime half-way between the quantum one at the microscopic level and the classical one at the level of macroscopic averages. Here, we consider the mesoscopic behaviour emerging from an infinite quantum spin chain undergoing a microscopic dissipative, irreversible dynamics and from global states without long-range correlations and invariant under lattice translations and dynamics. We show that, from the fluctuations of one site spin observables whose linear span is mapped into itself by the dynamics, there emerge bosonic operators obeying a mesoscopic dissipative dynamics mapping Gaussian states into Gaussian states. Instead of just depleting quantum correlations because of decoherence effects, these maps can generate entanglement at the collective, mesoscopic level, a phenomenon with no classical analogue that embodies a peculiar complex behaviour at the interface between micro and macro regimes., Comment: LaTex, 30 pages

We consider Markovian open quantum systems subject to stochastic resetting, which means that the dissipative time evolution is reset at randomly distributed times to the initial state. We show that the ensuing dynamics is non-Markovian and has the form of a generalized Lindblad equation. Interestingly, the statistics of quantum-jumps can be exactly derived. This is achieved by combining techniques from the thermodynamics of quantum-jump trajectories with the renewal structure of the resetting dynamics. We consider as an application of our analysis a driven two-level and an intermittent three-level system. Our findings show that stochastic resetting may be exploited as a tool to tailor the statistics of the quantum-jump trajectories and the dynamical phases of open quantum systems., 37 pages and 7 Figures