Spectral gaps and mid-gap states in random quantum master equations

Abstract

We discuss the decay rates of chaotic quantum systems coupled to noise. We model both the Hamiltonian and the system-noise coupling by random $N \times N$ Hermitian matrices, and study the spectral properties of the resulting Lindblad superoperator. We consider various random-matrix ensembles, and find that for all of them the asymptotic decay rate remains nonzero in the thermodynamic limit, i.e., the spectrum of the superoperator is gapped as $N \rightarrow \infty$. A sharp spectral transition takes place as the dissipation strength is increased: for weak dissipation, the non-zero eigenvalues of the master equation form a continuum; whereas for strong dissipation, the asymptotic decay rate is an \emph{isolated eigenvalue}, i.e., a `mid-gap state' that is sharply separated from the continuous spectrum of the master equation. For finite $N$, the probability of finding a very small gap vanishes algebraically with a scaling exponent that is extensive in system size, and depends only on the symmetry class of the random matrices and the number of independent decay channels. We comment on experimental implications of our results.