398 research outputs found
Finite quantum environments as thermostats: an analysis based on the Hilbert space average method
We consider discrete quantum systems coupled to finite environments which may
possibly consist of only one particle in contrast to the standard baths which
usually consist of continua of oscillators, spins, etc. We find that such
finite environments may, nevertheless, act as thermostats, i.e., equilibrate
the system though not necessarily in the way predicted by standard open system
techniques. Thus, we apply a novel technique called the Hilbert space Average
Method (HAM) and verify its results numerically.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure
Failure of Effective Potential Approach: Nucleus-Electron Entanglement in the He-Ion
Entanglement may be considered a resource for quantum-information processing,
as the origin of robust and universal equilibrium behaviour, but also as a
limit to the validity of an effective potential approach, in which the
influence of certain interacting subsystems is treated as a potential. Here we
show that a closed three particle (two protons, one electron) model of a He-ion
featuring realistic size, interactions and energy scales of electron and
nucleus, respectively, exhibits different types of dynamics depending on the
initial state: For some cases the traditional approach, in which the nucleus
only appears as the center of a Coulomb potential, is valid, in others this
approach fails due to entanglement arising on a short time-scale. Eventually
the system can even show signatures of thermodynamical behaviour, i.e. the
electron may relax to a maximum local entropy state which is, to some extent,
independent of the details of the initial state.Comment: Submitted to Europhysics Letter
Distribution of local entropy in the Hilbert space of bi-partite quantum systems: Origin of Jaynes' principle
For a closed bi-partite quantum system partitioned into system proper and
environment we interprete the microcanonical and the canonical condition as
constraints for the interaction between those two subsystems. In both cases the
possible pure-state trajectories are confined to certain regions in Hilbert
space. We show that in a properly defined thermodynamical limit almost all
states within those accessible regions represent states of some maximum local
entropy. For the microcanonical condition this dominant state still depends on
the initial state; for the canonical condition it coincides with that defined
by Jaynes' principle. It is these states which thermodynamical systems should
generically evolve into.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review
Entanglement and the factorization-approximation
For a bi-partite quantum system defined in a finite dimensional Hilbert space
we investigate in what sense entanglement change and interactions imply each
other. For this purpose we introduce an entanglement operator, which is then
shown to represent a non-conserved property for any bi-partite system and any
type of interaction. This general relation does not exclude the existence of
special initial product states, for which the entanglement remains small over
some period of time, despite interactions. For this case we derive an
approximation to the full Schroedinger equation, which allows the treatment of
the composite systems in terms of product states. The induced error is
estimated. In this factorization-approximation one subsystem appears as an
effective potential for the other. A pertinent example is the Jaynes-Cummings
model, which then reduces to the semi-classical rotating wave approximation.Comment: Accepted for publication in European Physical Journal
On the concept of pressure in quantum mechanics
Heat and work are fundamental concepts for thermodynamical systems. When
these are scaled down to the quantum level they require appropriate embeddings.
Here we show that the dependence of the particle spectrum on system size giving
rise to a formal definition of pressure can, indeed, be correlated with an
external mechanical degree of freedom, modelled as a spatial coordinate of a
quantum oscillator. Under specific conditions this correlation is reminiscent
of that occurring in the classical manometer.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure
Scaling behavior of interactions in a modular quantum system and the existence of local temperature
We consider a quantum system of fixed size consisting of a regular chain of
-level subsystems, where is finite. Forming groups of subsystems
each, we show that the strength of interaction between the groups scales with
. As a consequence, if the total system is in a thermal state with
inverse temperature , a sufficient condition for subgroups of size
to be approximately in a thermal state with the same temperature is , where is the width of the occupied
level spectrum of the total system. These scaling properties indicate on what
scale local temperatures may be meaningfully defined as intensive variables.
This question is particularly relevant for non-equilibrium scenarios such as
heat conduction etc.Comment: 7 pages, accepted for publication in Europhysics Letter
Relaxation into equilibrium under pure Schr\"odinger dynamics
We consider bipartite quantum systems that are described completely by a
state vector and the fully deterministic Schr\"odinger equation.
Under weak constraints and without any artificially introduced decoherence or
irreversibility, the smaller of the two subsystems shows thermodynamic
behaviour like relaxation into an equilibrium, maximization of entropy and the
emergence of the Boltzmann energy distribution. This generic behaviour results
from entanglement.Comment: 5 pages, 9 figure
Dynamical typicality of quantum expectation values
We show that the vast majority of all pure states featuring a common
expectation value of some generic observable at a given time will yield very
similar expectation values of the same observable at any later time. This is
meant to apply to Schroedinger type dynamics in high dimensional Hilbert
spaces. As a consequence individual dynamics of expectation values are then
typically well described by the ensemble average. Our approach is based on the
Hilbert space average method. We support the analytical investigations with
numerics obtained by exact diagonalization of the full time-dependent
Schroedinger equation for some pertinent, abstract Hamiltonian model.
Furthermore, we discuss the implications on the applicability of projection
operator methods with respect to initial states, as well as on irreversibility
in general.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let
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