Order-Dependent Modification of High-Harmonic Generation by Quantum Dissipation and Lamb Shift
Abstract
Many-body environments are conventionally incorporated into quantum dynamics as heat baths, which induce a Lamb shift and quantum dissipation. In the traditional picture, such environmental coupling is expected to induce suppression and broadening of spectral signals. In this letter, we investigate high-order harmonic generation (HHG) in a two-level system coupled to a heat bath via dipole-dipole interactions using the Lindblad master equation. It is found that the environmental effect does not simply suppress the harmonic efficiency. Instead, when the cutoff frequency of the coupling spectral density exceeds the energy-level spacing, the environment can actually enhance the harmonic yield. Further analysis reveals that this enhancement originates from intense level fluctuations induced by the Lamb shift. Meanwhile, the environmental influence exhibits a distinct dependence on harmonic order, manifesting clearly different behaviors for lower and higher harmonics. Our results challenge the common relaxation-time picture of uniform damping and establish a microscopic, order-dependent mechanism for environmental control of HHG, with direct implications for solid-state attosecond spectroscopy and quantum material engineering.
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BibTeX
@misc{zhang2026orderdependent,
title = {{Order-Dependent Modification of High-Harmonic Generation by Quantum Dissipation and Lamb Shift}},
author = {Xiangyu Zhang and Tong Wu and Xiang Li and Jianshi Lu and Zhe Yang and Chao Yu and Shicheng Jiang and Ruifeng Lu},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.27742},
eprint = {2609.27742},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.27742},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Order-Dependent Modification of High-Harmonic Generation by Quantum Dissipation and Lamb Shift
AU - Xiangyu Zhang
AU - Tong Wu
AU - Xiang Li
AU - Jianshi Lu
AU - Zhe Yang
AU - Chao Yu
AU - Shicheng Jiang
AU - Ruifeng Lu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/23
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.27742
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.27742
AB - Many-body environments are conventionally incorporated into quantum dynamics as heat baths, which induce a Lamb shift and quantum dissipation. In the traditional picture, such environmental coupling is expected to induce suppression and broadening of spectral signals. In this letter, we investigate high-order harmonic generation (HHG) in a two-level system coupled to a heat bath via dipole-dipole interactions using the Lindblad master equation. It is found that the environmental effect does not simply suppress the harmonic efficiency. Instead, when the cutoff frequency of the coupling spectral density exceeds the energy-level spacing, the environment can actually enhance the harmonic yield. Further analysis reveals that this enhancement originates from intense level fluctuations induced by the Lamb shift. Meanwhile, the environmental influence exhibits a distinct dependence on harmonic order, manifesting clearly different behaviors for lower and higher harmonics. Our results challenge the common relaxation-time picture of uniform damping and establish a microscopic, order-dependent mechanism for environmental control of HHG, with direct implications for solid-state attosecond spectroscopy and quantum material engineering.
ER -