Quantum Strong-To-Weak Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking in Decohered One-Dimensional Critical States

Symmetry breaking has been a central theme in classifying quantum phases and phase transitions. Recently, this concept has been extended to the mixed states of open systems, attracting considerable attention due to the emergence of novel physics beyond closed systems. In this work, we reveal a new type of phase transition in mixed states, termed strong-to-weak spontaneous symmetry breaking (SWSSB). Using a combination of field theory calculations and large-scale matrix product state simulations, we map out the global phase diagram of the <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><a:mi>X</a:mi><a:mi>X</a:mi><a:mi>Z</a:mi></a:math> critical spin chain under local strong symmetry preserving decoherence, which features an SWSSB phase and a trivial Luttinger liquid phase, separated by a straight critical line that belongs to the boundary Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless universality class with a varying effective central charge. Importantly, we analyze this transition from two complementary perspectives: on one hand, through the behavior of order parameters that characterize the symmetry breaking; on the other hand, from a quantum information viewpoint by studying entropic quantities and the concept of quantum recoverability. This dual approach allows us to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the phase structure and the nature of the transition. Remarkably, the SWSSB transition in our case is in the sense that it can only be driven by tuning the Hamiltonian parameter even under arbitrary decoherence strength, fundamentally distinguishing it from the decoherence-driven SWSSB transitions extensively discussed in previous literature. Importantly, our unified theoretical framework is applicable to a broad class of one-dimensional quantum systems, including spin chains and fermionic systems, whose low-energy physics can be described by Luttinger liquid theory, under arbitrary symmetry-preserving decoherence channels. Finally, we also discuss the experimental relevance of our theory on quantum simulator platforms.