We resolve the real-time dynamics of a purely dissipative $s = 1/2$ quantum spin or, equivalently, hard-core boson model on a hypercubic $d$-dimensional lattice. The considered quantum dissipative process drives the system to a totally symmetric macroscopic superposition in each of the $S^3$ sectors. Different characteristic time scales are identified for the dynamics and we determine their finite-size scaling. We introduce the concept of cumulative entanglement distribution to quantify multiparticle entanglement and show that the considered protocol serves as an efficient method to prepare a macroscopically entangled Bose-Einstein condensate.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; version accepted for publication in PR

We investigate the real-time dynamics of open quantum spin-1/2 or hardcore boson systems on a spatial lattice, which are governed by a Markovian quantum master equation. We derive general conditions under which the hierarchy of correlation functions closes such that their time evolution can be computed semi-analytically. Expanding our previous work (2016 Phys. Rev. A 93 021602) we demonstrate the universality of a purely dissipative quantum Markov process that drives the system of spin-1/2 particles into a totally symmetric superposition state, corresponding to a Bose-Einstein condensate of hardcore bosons. In particular, we show that the finite-size scaling behavior of the dissipative gap is independent of the chosen boundary conditions and the underlying lattice structure. In addition, we consider the effect of a uniform magnetic field as well as a coupling to a thermal bath to investigate the susceptibility of the engineered dissipative process to unitary and nonunitary perturbations. We establish the nonequilibrium steady-state phase diagram as a function of temperature and dissipative coupling strength. For a small number of particles N, we identify a parameter region in which the engineered symmetrizing dissipative process performs robustly, while in the thermodynamic limit  ¥ N , the coupling to the thermal bath destroys any long-range order.

We construct doubled lattice Chern-Simons-Yang-Mills theories with discrete gauge group G in the Hamiltonian formulation. Here, these theories are considered on a square spatial lattice and the fundamental degrees of freedom are defined on pairs of links from the direct lattice and its dual, respectively. This provides a natural lattice construction for topologically-massive gauge theories, which are invariant under parity and time-reversal symmetry. After defining the building blocks of the doubled theories, paying special attention to the realization of gauge transformations on quantum states, we examine the dynamics in the group space of a single cross, which is spanned by a single link and its dual. The dynamics is governed by the single-cross electric Hamiltonian and admits a simple quantum mechanical analogy to the problem of a charged particle moving on a discrete space affected by an abstract electromagnetic potential. Such a particle might accumulate a phase shift equivalent to an Aharonov-Bohm phase, which is manifested in the doubled theory in terms of a nontrivial ground-state degeneracy on a single cross. We discuss several examples of these doubled theories with different gauge groups including the cyclic group Z(k) ⊂ U (1), the symmetric group S 3 ⊂ O(2), the binary dihedral (or quaternion) groupD 2 ⊂ SU (2), and the finite group ∆(27) ⊂ SU (3). In each case the spectrum of the single-cross electric Hamiltonian is determined exactly. We examine the nature of the low-lying excited states in the full Hilbert space, and emphasize the role of the center symmetry for the confinement of charges. Whether the investigated doubled models admit a non-Abelian topological state which allows for fault-tolerant quantum computation will be addressed in a future publication.

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