Quantum contact process

Abstract

The contact process is a paradigmatic classical stochastic system displaying critical behavior even in one dimension. It features a non-equilibrium phase transition into an absorbing state that has been widely investigated and shown to belong to the directed percolation universality class. When the same process is considered in a quantum setting much less is known. So far mainly semi-classical studies have been conducted and the nature of the transition in low dimensions is still a matter of debate. Also from a numerical point of view, from which the system may look fairly simple --- especially in one dimension --- results are lacking. In particular the presence of the absorbing state poses a substantial challenge which appears to affect the reliability of algorithms targeting directly the steady-state. Here we perform real-time numerical simulations of the open dynamics of the quantum contact process and shed light on the existence and on the nature of an absorbing state phase transition in one dimension. We find evidence for the transition being continuous and provide first estimates for the critical exponents. Beyond the conceptual interest, the simplicity of the quantum contact process makes it an ideal benchmark problem for scrutinizing numerical methods for open quantum non-equilibrium systems.