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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Non-Markovian skin effect

Po-Chen Kuo1,2,3,4,*, Shen-Liang Yang1,2,*, Neill Lambert3,4,†, Jhen-Dong Lin1,2, Yi-Te Huang1,2,3,4, Franco Nori3,4,5, and Yueh-Nan Chen1,2,6,‡

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: nwlambert@gmail.com
  • ‡Contact author: yuehnan@mail.ncku.edu.tw
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, L012068 – Published 12 March, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.7.L012068

Abstract

The Liouvillian skin effect and the non-Hermitian skin effect have both been used to explain the localization of eigenmodes near system boundaries, though the former is arguably more accurate in some regimes due to its incorporation of quantum jumps. However, these frameworks predominantly focus on weak Markovian interactions, neglecting the potentially crucial role of memory effects. To address this, we investigate, utilizing the powerful hierarchical equations of motion method, how a non-Markovian environment can modify the Liouvillian skin effect. We demonstrate that a non-Markovian environment can induce a “thick skin effect,” where the skin mode broadens and shifts into the bulk. We further identify that the skin-mode quantum coherence can only be generated when the coupling contains counter-rotating terms, leading to the coherence delocalization and oscillatory relaxation with a characteristic linear scaling with system size. Remarkably, both the skin-mode and steady-state coherence exhibit resistance to decoherence from additional environmental noise. These findings highlight the profound impact of system-bath correlations on relaxation and localization, revealing unique phenomena beyond conventional Markovian approximations.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, L012068– Published 12 March, 2025
  • Received 22 March 2024
  • Accepted 12 February 2025
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