Topology from Decoherence

Quantum Physics arXiv:2607.07801 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 8 Jul 2026] Title:Topology from Decoherence Authors:Alexandre Chaduteau, Derek Lee, Frank Schindler, Abhinav Prem View a PDF of the paper titled Topology from Decoherence, by Alexandre Chaduteau and 3 other authors View PDF Abstract:Decoherence is conventionally regarded as an obstacle to realizing topological quantum phases. This has motivated extensive efforts to suppress noise in candidate topological materials and devices. Here, we show that decoherence can instead induce topological phenomena. We demonstrate this in a lattice system subject to environment-induced dephasing. The noise-averaged dynamics, governed by an interacting quantum master equation, realize a topological phase characterized by a winding number and the non-Hermitian skin effect. The dynamical consequence is striking: the correlated nature of the stochastic noise yields asymmetric diffusion, whose direction is fixed by the winding number and is reversible only through a topological phase transition. This effect is induced purely by interactions, distinguishing it from previous studies of free, effectively single-particle systems. It also disappears upon postselecting measurement outcomes, confirming that it is a genuinely open-system phenomenon with no effective Hamiltonian description. Remarkably, the model remains analytically tractable. Our results establish correlated quantum noise as a route to topology in open many-body systems, beyond free-particle and non-Hermitian Hamiltonian paradigms. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall); Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) Cite as: arXiv:2607.07801 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2607.07801v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2607.07801 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Alexandre Chaduteau [view email] [v1] Wed, 8 Jul 2026 18:00:04 UTC (5,238 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Topology from Decoherence, by Alexandre Chaduteau and 3 other authorsView PDFTeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-07 Change to browse by: cond-mat cond-mat.mes-hall cond-mat.str-el 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?)