Electron barrier interaction in a vacuum tunneling probe

A model for dealing with energy and momentum exchanges between ballistic electrons in a vacuum barrier in a tunneling probe used as an electromechanical transducer is studied and its physical significance in devices of size comparable to the mean free path of the tunneling electrons is discusse

Ground state of many-body lattice systems via a central limit theorem

We review a novel approach to evaluate the ground-state properties of many-body lattice systems based on an exact probabilistic representation of the dynamics and its long time approximation via a central limit theorem. The choice of the asymptotic density probability used in the calculation is discussed in detail.Comment: 9 pages, contribution to the proceedings of 12th International Conference on Recent Progress in Many-Body Theories, Santa Fe, New Mexico, August 23-27, 200

Asymptotic lower bound for the gap of Hermitian matrices having ergodic ground states and infinitesimal off-diagonal elements

Given a $M\times M$ Hermitian matrix $\mathcal{H}$ with possibly degenerate eigenvalues $\mathcal{E}_1 < \mathcal{E}_2 < \mathcal{E}_3< \dots$, we provide, in the limit $M\to\infty$, a lower bound for the gap $\mu_2 = \mathcal{E}_2 - \mathcal{E}_1$ assuming that (i) the eigenvector (eigenvectors) associated to $\mathcal{E}_1$ is ergodic (are all ergodic) and (ii) the off-diagonal terms of $\mathcal{H}$ vanish for $M\to\infty$ more slowly than $M^{-2}$. Under these hypotheses, we find $\varliminf_{M\to\infty} \mu_2 \geq \varlimsup_{M\to\infty} \min_{n} \mathcal{H}_{n,n}$. This general result turns out to be important for upper bounding the relaxation time of linear master equations characterized by a matrix equal, or isospectral, to $\mathcal{H}$. As an application, we consider symmetric random walks with infinitesimal jump rates and show that the relaxation time is upper bounded by the configurations (or nodes) with minimal degree.Comment: 5 page

Ultracold atomic Fermi-Bose mixtures in bichromatic optical dipole traps: a novel route to study fermion superfluidity

The study of low density, ultracold atomic Fermi gases is a promising avenue to understand fermion superfluidity from first principles. One technique currently used to bring Fermi gases in the degenerate regime is sympathetic cooling through a reservoir made of an ultracold Bose gas. We discuss a proposal for trapping and cooling of two-species Fermi-Bose mixtures into optical dipole traps made from combinations of laser beams having two different wavelengths. In these bichromatic traps it is possible, by a proper choice of the relative laser powers, to selectively trap the two species in such a way that fermions experience a stronger confinement than bosons. As a consequence, a deep Fermi degeneracy can be reached having at the same time a softer degenerate regime for the Bose gas. This leads to an increase in the sympathetic cooling efficiency and allows for higher precision thermometry of the Fermi-Bose mixture

Phase transitions and gaps in quantum random energy models

By using a previously established exact characterization of the ground state of random potential systems in the thermodynamic limit, we determine the ground and first excited energy levels of quantum random energy models, discrete and continuous. We rigorously establish the existence of a universal first order quantum phase transition, obeyed by both the ground and the first excited states. The presence of an exponentially vanishing minimal gap at the transition is general but, quite interestingly, the gap averaged over the realizations of the random potential is finite. This fact leaves still open the chance for some effective quantum annealing algorithm, not necessarily based on a quantum adiabatic scheme.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

A Selective Relaxation Method for Numerical Solution of Schr\"odinger Problems

We propose a numerical method for evaluating eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of Schr\"odinger operators with general confining potentials. The method is selective in the sense that only the eigenvalue closest to a chosen input energy is found through an absolutely-stable relaxation algorithm which has rate of convergence infinite. In the case of bistable potentials the method allows one to evaluate the fundamental energy splitting for a wide range of tunneling rates.Comment: 4 pages with figures, uuencoded Z-compressed ps fil

Thermalization of noninteracting quantum systems coupled to blackbody radiation: A Lindblad-based analysis

We study the thermalization of an ensemble of $N$ elementary, arbitrarily-complex, quantum systems, mutually noninteracting but coupled as electric or magnetic dipoles to a blackbody radiation. The elementary systems can be all the same or belong to different species, distinguishable or indistinguishable, located at fixed positions or having translational degrees of freedom. Even if the energy spectra of the constituent systems are nondegenerate, as we suppose, the ensemble unavoidably presents degeneracies of the energy levels and/or of the energy gaps. We show that, due to these degeneracies, a thermalization analysis performed by the popular quantum optical master equation reveals a number of serious pathologies, possibly including a lack of ergodicity. On the other hand, a consistent thermalization scenario is obtained by introducing a Lindblad-based approach, in which the Lindblad operators, instead of being derived from a microscopic calculation, are established as the elements of an operatorial basis with squared amplitudes fixed by imposing a detailed balance condition and requiring their correspondence with the dipole transition rates evaluated under the first-order perturbation theory. Due to the above-mentioned degeneracies, this procedure suffers a basis arbitrariness which, however, can be removed by exploiting the fact that the thermalization of an ensemble of noninteracting systems cannot depend on the ensemble size. As a result, we provide a clear-cut partitioning of the thermalization time into dissipation and decoherence times, for which we derive formulas giving the dependence on the energy levels of the elementary systems, the size $N$ of the ensemble, and the temperature of the blackbody radiation.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur

Obtaining pure steady states in nonequilibrium quantum systems with strong dissipative couplings

Dissipative preparation of a pure steady state usually involves a commutative action of a coherent and a dissipative dynamics on the target state. Namely, the target pure state is an eigenstate of both the coherent and dissipative parts of the dynamics. We show that working in the Zeno regime, i.e. for infinitely large dissipative coupling, one can generate a pure state by a non commutative action, in the above sense, of the coherent and dissipative dynamics. A corresponding Zeno regime pureness criterion is derived. We illustrate the approach, looking at both its theoretical and applicative aspects, in the example case of an open $XXZ$ spin-$1/2$ chain, driven out of equilibrium by boundary reservoirs targeting different spin orientations. Using our criterion, we find two families of pure nonequilibrium steady states, in the Zeno regime, and calculate the dissipative strengths effectively needed to generate steady states which are almost indistinguishable from the target pure states.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure