Exact nonequilibrium steady states of driven-dissipative fermionic systems

Nonequilibrium steady states (NESS) of driven-dissipative many-body systems can exhibit surprising and unexpected phenomena due to the interplay of driving, dissipation, and lattice dynamics or interactions. Recent work on hidden time-reversal symmetry and the associated ``coherent quantum absorber'' exact solution technique [1] has proved successful for finding the exact NESS of many-body bosonic [2] and spin [3] models. Yet, the study of hidden time-reversal symmetry has been limited to bosonic and spin models, with no examples of its existence in fermionic systems. Here we discuss the extension of hidden time-reversal symmetry to driven-dissipative fermionic master equations, which can describe the dynamics of, e.g., cold atomic gases [4]. We resolve the subtleties of constructing the fermionic coherent quantum absorber and present an exactly solvable many-body fermion model reminiscent of the boson model solved in Ref. [2]. Finally we discuss potential experimental realizations of this system.

[1] Roberts, et al. PRX Quantum 2, 020336 (2021)

[2] Roberts and Clerk, Phys Rev Lett 130, 063601 (2023)

[3] Lingenfelter, et al. Phys Rev X 14, 021028 (2024)

[4] Fazio, et al. arXiv:2409.10300 (2024)