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Bath-induced deviations from Gibbs statistics for strongly interacting oscillators

arXiv Quantum Physics
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Researchers from Chile and Austria challenge the assumption that quantum systems always thermalize to Gibbs states, revealing that non-secular terms in the Redfield equation can drive systems toward non-Gibbs equilibria under specific conditions. The study focuses on two strongly coupled quantum oscillators exposed to independent baths at identical temperatures, showing that unequal damping rates disrupt thermalization, causing steady-state occupation numbers to deviate from Boltzmann distributions. The team identifies bath-induced coherences between nearly degenerate energy levels as the microscopic mechanism generating an excitation flux, which alters expected thermal statistics even in equilibrium. Experimental conditions for observing these deviations are proposed, including precise control of bath coupling strengths and oscillator interactions, offering testable predictions for quantum simulation platforms. The work suggests that recovering Gibbs statistics requires suppressing non-secular terms or balancing bath-induced damping, providing a framework for designing thermalization-preserving quantum systems.
Bath-induced deviations from Gibbs statistics for strongly interacting oscillators

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Quantum Physics arXiv:2606.00239 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 29 May 2026] Title:Bath-induced deviations from Gibbs statistics for strongly interacting oscillators Authors:Felipe Recabal, Adrian E. Rubio Lopez, Johannes Schachenmayer, Felipe Herrera View a PDF of the paper titled Bath-induced deviations from Gibbs statistics for strongly interacting oscillators, by Felipe Recabal and 3 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:The Redfield quantum master equation is widely used to study the dynamics of interacting sub-systems that are weakly coupled to baths. Redfield dynamics under secular approximation preserves positivity of the reduced density operator and thermalizes the system into a Gibbs state at equilibrium. Long-time effects arising from non-secular terms are often neglected, but depending on the system spectrum and relative bath couplings, non-secular contributions are shown here to drive the system into a non-Gibbs state. For two strongly interacting quantum oscillators with independent baths at equal temperature, we analyze the microscopic origin of the deviations from Gibbs statistics. Provided that the oscillators are unequally damped by their baths, we show that steady state occupation numbers can significantly deviate from a Boltzmann distribution due to an excitation flux driven by bath-induced coherences between nearly-degenerate oscillator levels. Conditions for the recovery of thermal Gibbs statistics are discussed and experimental signatures suggested. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2606.00239 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2606.00239v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.00239 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Felipe Herrera [view email] [v1] Fri, 29 May 2026 18:13:50 UTC (147 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Bath-induced deviations from Gibbs statistics for strongly interacting oscillators, by Felipe Recabal and 3 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-06 Change to browse by: physics physics.chem-ph References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)

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Source: arXiv Quantum Physics