Emergence of equilibrium thermodynamic properties in quantum pure states. II. Analysis of a spin model system

A system composed of identical spins and described by a quantum mechanical pure state is analyzed within the statistical framework presented in Part I of this work. We explicitly derive the typical values of the entropy, of the energy, and of the equilibrium reduced density matrix of a subsystem for the two different statistics introduced in Part I. In order to analyze their consistency with thermodynamics, these quantities of interest are evaluated in the limit of large number of components of the isolated system. The main results can be summarized as follows: typical values of the entropy and of the equilibrium reduced density matrix as functions of the internal energy in the fixed expectation energy ensemble do not satisfy the requirement of thermodynamics. On the contrary, the thermodynamical description is recovered from the random pure state ensemble (RPSE), provided that one considers systems large enough. The thermodynamic limit of the considered properties for the spin system reveals a number of important features. First canonical statistics (and thus, canonical typicality as long as the fluctuations around the average value are small) emerges without the need of assuming the microcanonical space for the global pure state. Moreover, we rigorously prove (i) the equivalence of the "global temperature," derived from the entropy equation of state, with the "local temperature" determining the canonical state of the subsystems; and (ii) the equivalence between the RPSE typical entropy and the canonical entropy for the overall system.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figure

Scaling above the upper critical dimension in Ising Models

We rederive the finite size scaling formula for the apparent critical temperature by using Mean Field Theory for the Ising Model above the upper critical dimension. We have also performed numerical simulations in five dimensions and our numerical data are in a good agreement with the Mean Field theoretical predictions, in particular, with the finite size exponent of the connected susceptibility and with the value of the Binder cumulant.Comment: 9 pages and 3 figures, available at http://chimera.roma1.infn.it/index_papers_complex.htm

Signatures of Anderson localization and delocalized random quantum states

We consider the notion of equilibration for an isolated quantum system exhibiting Anderson localization. The system is assumed to be in a pure state, i.e., described by a wave-function undergoing unitary dynamics. We focus on the simplest model of a 1D disordered chain and we analyse both the dynamics of an initially localized state and the dynamics of quantum states drawn at random from the ensemble corresponding to the minimum knowledge about the initial state. While in the former case the site distribution remains confined in a limited portion of the chain, the site distribution of random pure state fluctuates around an equilibrium average that is delocalized over the entire chain. A clear connection between the equilibration observed when the system is initialized in a fully localized state and the amplitude of dynamical fluctuations of a typical random pure state is established

Beyond quantum microcanonical statistics

Descriptions of molecular systems usually refer to two distinct theoretical frameworks. On the one hand the quantum pure state, i.e. the wavefunction, of an isolated system which is determined to calculate molecular properties and to consider the time evolution according to the unitary Schr\"odinger equation. On the other hand a mixed state, i.e. a statistical density matrix, is the standard formalism to account for thermal equilibrium, as postulated in the microcanonical quantum statistics. In the present paper an alternative treatment relying on a statistical analysis of the possible wavefunctions of an isolated system is presented. In analogy with the classical ergodic theory, the time evolution of the wavefunction determines the probability distribution in the phase space pertaining to an isolated system. However, this alone cannot account for a well defined thermodynamical description of the system in the macroscopic limit, unless a suitable probability distribution for the quantum constants of motion is introduced. We present a workable formalism assuring the emergence of typical values of thermodynamic functions, such as the internal energy and the entropy, in the large size limit of the system. This allows the identification of macroscopic properties independently of the specific realization of the quantum state. A description of material systems in agreement with equilibrium thermodynamics is then derived without constraints on the physical constituents and interactions of the system. Furthermore, the canonical statistics is recovered in all generality for the reduced density matrix of a subsystem

Pilot-wave quantum theory with a single Bohm's trajectory

The representation of a quantum system as the spatial configuration of its constituents evolving in time as a trajectory under the action of the wave-function, is the main objective of the Bohm theory. However, its standard formulation is referred to the statistical ensemble of its possible trajectories. The statistical ensemble is introduced in order to establish the exact correspondence (the Born's rule) between the probability density on the spatial configurations and the quantum distribution, that is the squared modulus of the wave-function. In this work we explore the possibility of using the pilot wave theory at the level of a single Bohm's trajectory. The pilot wave theory allows a formally self-consistent representation of quantum systems as a single Bohm's trajectory, but in this case there is no room for the Born's rule at least in its standard form. We will show that a correspondence exists between the statistical distribution of configurations along the single Bohm's trajectory and the quantum distribution for a subsystem interacting with the environment in a multicomponent system. To this aim, we present the numerical results of the single Bohm's trajectory description of the model system of six confined rotors with random interactions. We find a rather close correspondence between the coordinate distribution of one rotor along its trajectory and the time averaged marginal quantum distribution for the same rotor. This might be considered as the counterpart of the standard Born's rule. Furthermore a strongly fluctuating behavior with a fast loss of correlation is found for the evolution of each rotor coordinate. This suggests that a Markov process might well approximate the evolution of the Bohm's coordinate of a single rotor and it is shown that the correspondence between coordinate distribution and quantum distribution of the rotor is exactly verified

A first principle computation of the thermodynamics of glasses

We propose a first principle computation of the equilibrium thermodynamics of simple fragile glasses starting from the two body interatomic potential. A replica formulation translates this problem into that of a gas of interacting molecules, each molecule being built of m atoms, and having a gyration radius (related to the cage size) which vanishes at zero temperature. We use a small cage expansion, valid at low temperatures, which allows to compute the cage size, the specific heat (which follows the Dulong and Petit law), and the configurational entropy.Comment: Latex, 40 pages, 9 figures, corrected misprints, improved presentatio