Fate of entanglement in quadratic Markovian dissipative systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a hydrodynamic framework to analyze how entanglement negativity evolves in driven-dissipative quantum systems, revealing how correlations propagate and decay under linear dissipation.

Contribution

It develops a novel hydrodynamic approach to describe entanglement negativity dynamics in quadratic Lindblad systems, bridging microscopic quasiparticle behavior with macroscopic entanglement evolution.

Findings

Negativity can be reconstructed from quasiparticle correlations in the hydrodynamic limit.

The approach accurately describes entanglement dynamics in various quenched systems.

Benchmarking shows consistency across different models and initial conditions.

Abstract

We develop a hydrodynamic description for the driven-dissipative dynamics of the entanglement negativity, which quantifies the genuine entanglement in mixed-state systems. We focus on quantum quenches in fermionic and bosonic systems subject to linear dissipation, as described by quadratic Lindblad master equations. In the spirit of hydrodynamics, we divide the system into mesoscopic cells. At early times, correlations are generated in each cell by the unitary component of the evolution. Correlations are then transported across different cells via ballistic quasiparticle propagation, while simultaneously evolving under the action of the environment. We show that in the hydrodynamic limit the negativity can be reconstructed from the correlations between the independently propagating quasiparticles. We benchmark our approach considering quenches from both homogeneous and inhomogeneous initial states in the Kitaev chain, the tight-binding chain, and the harmonic chain in the presence of gain/loss dissipation.