Method for driven-dissipative problems: Keldysh-Heisenberg equations

Abstract

Driven-dissipative systems have recently attracted great attention due to the existence of novel physical phenomena with no analog in the equilibrium case. The Keldysh path-integral theory is a powerful tool to investigate these systems. However, it has still been challenge to study strong nonlinear effects implemented by recent experiments, since in this case the photon number is few and quantum fluctuations play a crucial role in dynamics of system. Here we develop a new approach for deriving exact steady states of driven-dissipative systems by introducing the Keldysh partition function in the Fock-state basis and then mapping the standard saddle-point equations into KeldyshHeisenberg equations. We take the strong Kerr nonlinear resonators with/without the nonlinear driving as two examples to illustrate our method. It is found that in the absence of the nonlinear driving, the exact steady state obtained does not exhibit bistability and agree well with the complex P-representation solution. While in the presence of the nonlinear driving, the multiphoton resonance effects are revealed and are consistent with the qualitative analysis. Our method provides an intuitive way to explore a variety of driven-dissipative systems especially with strong correlations.