Violation and revival of Kramers' degeneracy in open quantum systems

Kramers' theorem ensures double degeneracy in the energy spectrum of a time-reversal symmetric fermionic system with half-integer total spin. Here, we are trying to go beyond the closed system and discuss Kramers' degeneracy in open systems out of equilibrium. A natural way to extend the Kramers' degeneracy in open quantum systems is by the degeneracy of different spins' spectra together with the vanishing interspin spectrum. We find the violation of Kramers' degeneracy in time-reversal symmetric open quantum systems is locked with whether the system reaches thermal equilibrium. After a general coupling to an environment in a timereversal symmetry-preserving way, the Kramers doublet experiences an energy splitting at a short time and then a recovery process. We verified the violation and revival of Kramers' degeneracy in a concrete model of interacting fermions and we find Kramers' degeneracy is restored after the local thermalization time. By contrast, for time-reversal symmetry (T) over tilde with (T) over tilde (2) = 1, we find that although there is a violation and revival of spectral degeneracy for different spins, the inter-spin spectral function is always nonzero. We also prove that the degeneracy in spectral function protected by unitary symmetry can always be maintained.

Automated summary

Kramers' theorem ensures double degeneracy in the energy spectrum of a time-reversal symmetric fermionic system with half-integer total spin. In this study, we go beyond closed systems and investigate the violation and revival of Kramers' degeneracy in open systems out of equilibrium. We find that the violation of Kramers' degeneracy in time-reversal symmetric open quantum systems is related to the system's thermal equilibrium. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the degeneracy in spectral function protected by unitary symmetry can always be maintained.