A joint research initiative involving our group, alongside the team of Professor Andre Eckardt in Berlin and Dr. Ling Na Wu from the University of Hainan in China, has led to the observation of universal behavior in the temporal evolution of an open quantum system. The study delves into the relaxation dynamics of such a system, realized by the spin of individual Cesium atoms dissipatively coupled to a bath of ultracold Rubidium atoms. During this relaxation, we identified a critical point in time, marked by the divergence of a characteristic length scale. Remarkably, in the vicinity of this critical moment, the system’s dynamics become independent of its specific details. This independence near a critical point is a hallmark of universal scaling, a phenomenon that, as our findings suggest, also extends to the non-equilibrium dynamics of open quantum systems where time acts as a control parameter. These insights, typically associated with phase transitions, help in understanding how open quantum systems equilibrate towards thermal equilibrium. You can find the article here: doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46054-9