Kramers' degeneracy for open systems in thermal equilibrium

Abstract

Kramers' degeneracy theorem underpins many interesting effects in quantum systems with time-reversal symmetry. We show that the generator of dynamics for Markovian open fermionic systems can exhibit an analogous degeneracy, protected by a combination of time-reversal symmetry and the microreversibility (detailed balance) property of systems at thermal equilibrium -- the degeneracy is lifted if either condition is not met. We provide simple examples of this phenomenon and show that the degeneracy is reflected in the single-particle Green's functions. Furthermore, we show that certain experimental signatures of topological edge modes in open many-body systems can be protected by microreversibility in the same way. Our results highlight the importance of detailed balance in characterizing open topological matter.

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Symmetry of Open Quantum Systems: Classification of Dissipative Quantum Chaos
• Symmetry Classification of Many-Body Lindbladians: Tenfold Way and Beyond
• Exact solutions of interacting dissipative systems via weak symmetries
• Topological phase transitions at finite temperature
• Violation and Revival of Kramers' Degeneracy in Open Quantum Systems
• Time-reversal symmetry breaking and emergence in driven-dissipative Ising models
• Topological signatures in a weakly dissipative Kitaev chain of finite length