Geometric phase for a driven quantum field subject to decoherence

Abstract

We investigate the geometric phase for a quantum field driven by an external source and subjected to spontaneous decay from coupling to the reservoir. Starting from a coherent state, we analyze the effect of decoherence when the system undergoes a nonadiabatic cyclic evolution in phase space, and show that the lowest correction to the conventional geometric phase is quadratic in the decaying rate of the quantum field. This is in distinct contrast with the nonadiabatic geometric phase associated with the evolution of a spin system subjected to spontaneous decay, which contains the first-order correction term. We further show that the unconventional geometric phase is also robust to field decay.