Topological fingerprints in Liouvillian gaps.

Abstract

Topology in many-body physics usually emerges as a feature of equilibrium quantum states. We show that topological fingerprints can also appear in the relaxation rates of open quantum systems. To demonstrate this we consider one of the simplest models that has two topologically distinct phases in its ground state: the Kitaev chain model for the p-wave superconductor. After introducing dissipation to this model we estimate the Liouvillian gap in both strong and weak dissipative limits. Our results show that a nonzero superconducting pairing opens a Liouvillian gap that remains open in the limit of infinite system size. At strong dissipation this gap is essentially unaffected by the topology of the underlying Hamiltonian ground state. In contrast, when dissipation is weak, the topological phase of the Hamiltonian ground state plays a crucial role in determining the character of the Liouvillian gap. We find, for example, that in the topological phase this gap is completely immune to changes in the chemical potential. On the other hand, in the nontopological phase the Liouvillian gap is suppressed by a large chemical potential.