Keldysh field theory for driven open quantum systems

Recent experimental developments in diverse areas—ranging from cold atomic gases to light-driven semiconductors to microcavity arrays—move systems into the focus which are located on the interface of quantum optics, many-body physics and statistical mechanics. They share in common that coherent and driven–dissipative quantum dynamics occur on an equal footing, creating genuine non-equilibrium scenarios without immediate counterpart in equilibrium condensed matter physics. This concerns both their non-thermal stationary states and their many-body time evolution. It is a challenge to theory to identify novel instances of universal emergent macroscopic phenomena, which are tied unambiguously and in an observable way to the microscopic drive conditions. In this review, we discuss some recent results in this direction. Moreover, we provide a systematic introduction to the open system Keldysh functional integral approach, which is the proper technical tool to accomplish a merger of quantum optics and many-body physics, and leverages the power of modern quantum field theory to driven open quantum systems.