Fluctuation-Induced Quantum Zeno Effect

Understand

An isolated quantum gas with a localized loss features a non-monotonic behavior of the particle loss rate as an incarnation of the quantum Zeno effect, as recently shown in experiments with cold atomic gases.

• While this effect can be understood in terms of local, microscopic physics, we show that novel many-body effects emerge when non-linear gapless quantum fluctuations become important.
• To this end, we investigate the effect of a local dissipative impurity on a one-dimensional gas of interacting fermions.
• We show that the escape probability for modes close to the Fermi energy vanishes for an arbitrary strength of the dissipation.