1,003 research outputs found
Dynamical Topological Quantum Phase Transitions for Mixed States
We introduce and study dynamical probes of band structure topology in the
post-quench time-evolution from mixed initial states of quantum many-body
systems. Our construction generalizes the notion of dynamical quantum phase
transitions (DQPTs), a real-time counterpart of conventional equilibrium phase
transitions in quantum dynamics, to finite temperatures and generalized Gibbs
ensembles. The non-analytical signatures hallmarking these mixed state DQPTs
are found to be characterized by observable phase singularities manifesting in
the dynamical formation of vortex-antivortex pairs in the interferometric phase
of the density matrix. Studying quenches in Chern insulators, we find that
changes in the topological properties of the Hamiltonian can be identified in
this scenario, without ever preparing a topologically non-trivial or
low-temperature initial state. Our observations are of immediate relevance for
current experiments aimed at realizing topological phases in ultracold atomic
gases.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, version close to publishe
Parametric instability in periodically driven Luttinger liquids
We analyze the properties of a Luttinger liquid under the influence of a
periodic driving of the interaction strength. Irrespective of the details the
driven system develops an instability due to a parametric resonance. For slow
and fast driving, however, we identify intermediate long-lived meta-stable
states at constant time-averaged internal energies. Due to the instability
perturbations in the fermionic density are amplified exponentially leading to
the buildup of a superlattice. The momentum distribution develops a terrace
structure due to scattering processes that can be associated with the
absorption of quanta of the driving frequency.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Quantum localization bounds Trotter errors in digital quantum simulation
A fundamental challenge in digital quantum simulation (DQS) is the control of an inherent error, which appears when discretizing the time evolution of a quantum many-body system as a sequence of quantum gates, called Trotterization. Here, we show that quantum localization-by constraining the time evolution through quantum interference-strongly bounds these errors for local observables, leading to an error independent of system size and simulation time. DQS is thus intrinsically much more robust than suggested by known error bounds on the global many-body wave function. This robustness is characterized by a sharp threshold as a function of the Trotter step size, which separates a localized region with controllable Trotter errors from a quantum chaotic regime. Our findings show that DQS with comparatively large Trotter steps can retain controlled errors for local observables. It is thus possible to reduce the number of gate operations required to represent the desired time evolution faithfully
The Crooks relation in optical spectra - universality in work distributions for weak local quenches
We show that work distributions and non-equilibrium work fluctuation theorems
can be measured in optical spectra for a wide class of quantum systems. We
consider systems where the absorption or emission of a photon corresponds to
the sudden switch on or off of a local perturbation. For the particular case of
a weak local perturbation, the Crooks relation establishes a universal relation
in absorption as well as in emission spectra. Due to a direct relation between
the spectra and work distribution functions this is equivalent to universal
relations in work distributions for weak local quenches. As two concrete
examples we treat the X-ray edge problem and the Kondo exciton.Comment: 4+ pages, 1 figure; version as publishe
Describing many-body localized systems in thermal environments
In this work we formulate an efficient method for the description of fully many-body localized systems in weak contact with thermal environments at temperature T. The key idea is to exploit the representation of the system in terms of quasi-local integrals of motion (l-bits) to efficiently derive the generator for the quantum master equation in Born-Markov approximation. We, moreover, show how to compute the steady state of this equation efficiently by using quantum-jump Monte-Carlo techniques as well as by deriving approximate kinetic equations of motion. As an example, we consider a one-dimensional disordered extended Hubbard model for spinless fermions, for which we derive the l-bit representation approximately by employing a recently proposed method valid in the limit of strong disorder and weak interactions. Coupling the system to a global thermal bath, we study the transport between two leads with different chemical potentials at both of its ends. We find that the temperature-dependent current is captured by an interaction-dependent version of Mott's law for variable range hopping, where transport is enhanced/lowered depending on whether the interactions are attractive or repulsive, respectively. We interpret these results in terms of spatio-energetic correlations between the l-bits
Polarization Evolution in Strong Magnetic Fields
Extremely strong magnetic fields change the vacuum index of refraction.
Although this polarization dependent effect is small for typical neutron stars,
it is large enough to decouple the polarization states of photons traveling
within the field. The photon states evolve adiabatically and follow the
changing magnetic field direction. The combination of a rotating magnetosphere
and a frequency dependent state decoupling predicts polarization phase lags
between different wave bands, if the emission process takes place well within
the light cylinder. This QED effect may allow observations to distinguish
between different pulsar emission mechanisms and to reconstruct the structure
of the magnetosphere.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Dynamical Quantum Phase Transitions in the Transverse Field Ising Model
A phase transition indicates a sudden change in the properties of a large
system. For temperature-driven phase transitions this is related to
non-analytic behavior of the free energy density at the critical temperature:
The knowledge of the free energy density in one phase is insufficient to
predict the properties of the other phase. In this paper we show that a close
analogue of this behavior can occur in the real time evolution of quantum
systems, namely non-analytic behavior at a critical time. We denote such
behavior a dynamical phase transition and explore its properties in the
transverse field Ising model. Specifically, we show that the equilibrium
quantum phase transition and the dynamical phase transition in this model are
intimately related.Comment: 4+4 pages, 4 figures, Appendix adde
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