Power-law distributions in nonequilibrium open quantum systems

Quantum 10, 2054 (2026).

https://doi.org/10.22331/q-2026-04-08-2054

Power-law probability distributions are widely used to model extreme statistical events in complex systems, with applications to a vast array of natural phenomena ranging from earthquakes to stock market crashes to pandemics. We show that analogous heavy tails arise naturally in open quantum systems with nonlinear dissipation. Introducing a prototypical family of quantum dynamical models, we analytically prove the emergence of power-law tails in the steady state energy distribution, originating from an amplification of quantum noise whose microscopic fluctuations grow with energy. Moreover, our analysis suggests a general mechanism for heavy-tail statistics in the nonequilibrium steady states of open quantum systems: Nonlinear dissipation generically induces multiplicative quantum noise, enforced by the constraints of quantum mechanics, which is responsible for the heavy-tail behavior. This is supported by numerical simulations of a general class of nonlinear dynamics known as quantum Liénard systems. Remarkably, even when the corresponding classical system is stable, we find power-law tails in both steady-state populations and coherences, which occur for typical parameters without fine-tuning. This phenomenon can potentially be harnessed to develop extreme photon sources for novel applications in light-matter interaction and sensing.