Dynamically Emergent Correlations

TL;DR

This paper explores how strong correlations can dynamically emerge in classical and quantum systems under stochastic environments, highlighting their analytical tractability and experimental relevance.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of dynamically emergent correlations (DEC) and discusses their properties, analytical structure, and experimental observation in out-of-equilibrium systems.

Findings

DEC can produce strong correlations without direct interactions.

Stationary states of DEC often have an analytically tractable structure.

Recent experiments confirm measurable DEC in colloidal particles.

Abstract

In this perspective article, we discuss the scenario of dynamically emergent correlation (DEC) arising in classical and quantum noninteracting systems when they are subjected to a common fluctuating stochastic environment. The key property of such systems is that the strong correlations between different particles emerge from the dynamics and not from built-in interactions. In many cases, these strong correlations persist even at long times in the stationary state. Computing observables explicitly for such strongly correlated states in general is very hard. Remarkably, the stationary states in several models of DEC exhibit an interesting analytical structure that allows to compute physical observables, despite being strongly correlated. Recent experiments on trapped colloidal particles have established that these DEC in the stationary state can in fact be measured. DEC is a rapidly emerging domain of strongly correlated out-of-equilibrium statistical physics, with both theoretical and experimental, as well as classical and quantum, components.