Controlling Matter Phases beyond Markov

TL;DR

This paper explores how non-Markovian reservoir effects can be used to control and induce phase transitions in quantum systems, extending beyond traditional Markovian models.

Contribution

It introduces a spectral theory for non-Markovian dissipative phase transitions and demonstrates how memory effects can alter phase boundaries and trigger new phase transitions.

Findings

Memory effects reshape matter phase boundaries

Non-Markovian effects can induce genuine dissipative phase transitions

Spectral theory provides a framework for understanding these phenomena

Abstract

Controlling phase transitions in quantum systems via coupling to reservoirs has been mostly studied for idealized memory-less environments under the so-called Markov approximation. Yet, most quantum materials and experiments in the solid state, atomic, molecular and optical physics are coupled to reservoirs with finite memory times. Here, using the spectral theory of non-Markovian dissipative phase transitions developed in the companion paper [Debecker et al., Phys. Rev. A 110, 042201 (2024)], we show that memory effects can be leveraged to reshape matter phase boundaries, but also reveal the existence of dissipative phase transitions genuinely triggered by non-Markovian effects.