The number-conserving quantum phase space description of the Bose-Hubbard model is discussed for the illustrative case of two and three modes, as well as the generalization of the two-mode case to an open quantum system. The phase-space description based on generalized
SU(M) coherent states yields a Liouvillian flow in the macroscopic limit, which can be efficiently simulated using Monte Carlo methods even for large systems. We show that this description clearly goes beyond the common mean-field limit. In particular it resolves well-known problems where the common mean-field approach fails, such as the description of dynamical instabilities and chaotic dynamics. Moreover, it provides a valuable tool for a semiclassical approximation of many interesting quantities, which depend on higher moments of the quantum state and are therefore not accessible within the common approach. As a prominent example, we analyze the depletion and heating of the condensate. A comparison to methods ignoring the fixed particle number shows that in this case artificial number fluctuations lead to ambiguities and large deviations even for quite simple examples.
We propose a variational approach to the dynamics of the Bose-Hubbard model beyond the mean-field approximation. To develop a numerical scheme, we use a discrete overcomplete set of Glauber coherent states and its connection to the generalized coherent states studied in depth by Perelomov [Perelomov, Generalized Coherent States and Their Applications (Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1986)]. The variational equations of motion of the generalized coherent state parameters as well as of the coefficients in an expansion of the wave function in terms of those states are derived and solved for many-particle problems with large particle numbers
S and increasing mode number
M. For
M=6, it is revealed that the number of complex-valued parameters that have to be propagated is more than one order of magnitude less than in an expansion in terms of Fock states.
Abstract As a typical quantum many body problem, we consider the time evolution of density matrix elements in the Bose-Hubbard model. For an arbitrary initial state, these quantities can be obtained from an SDE or stochastic differential equation system. To this SDE system, a Girsanov transformation can be applied. This has the effect that all the information from the initial state moves into the drift part, into the mean field part, of the transformed system. In the large N limit with
g=UN g = U N fixed, the diffusive part of the transformed system vanishes and as a result, the exact quantum dynamics is given by an ODE system which turns out to be the time dependent discrete Gross Pitaevskii equation. For the two site Bose-Hubbard model, the GP equation reduces to the mathematical pendulum and the difference of expected number of particles at the two lattice sites is equal to the velocity of that pendulum which is either oscillatory or it can have rollovers which then corresponds to the self trapping or insulating phase. As a by-product, we also find an equivalence of the mathematical pendulum with a quartic double well potential. Collapse and revivals are a more subtle phenomenom, in order to see these the diffusive part of the SDE system or quantum corrections have to be taken into account. This can be done with an approximation and collapse and revivals can be reproduced, numerically and also through an analytic calculation. Since expectation values of Fresnel or Wiener diffusion processes, we write the density matrix elements exactly in this way, can be obtained from parabolic second order PDEs, we also obtain various exact PDE representations. The paper has been written with the goal to come up with an efficient calculation scheme for quantum many body systems and as such the formalism is generic and applies to arbitrary dimension, arbitrary hopping matrices and, with suitable adjustments, to fermionic models.
Abstract We introduce the number-conserving quantum phase space description as a versatile tool to address fundamental aspects of quantum many-body systems. Using phase space methods we prove two alternative versions of the quantum de Finetti theorem for finite-dimensional bosonic quantum systems, which states that a reduced density matrix of a many-body quantum state can be approximated by a convex combination of product states where the error is proportional to the inverse particle number. This theorem provides a formal justification for the mean-field description of many-body quantum systems, as it shows that quantum correlations can be neglected for the calculation of few-body observables when the particle number is large. Furthermore we discuss methods to derive the exact evolution equations for quantum phase space distribution functions as well as upper and lower bounds for the ground state energy. As an important example, we consider the Bose–Hubbard model and show that the mean-field dynamics is given by a classical phase space flow equivalent to the discrete Gross–Pitaevskii equation.
Abstract This paper is a first step toward rigorously establishing the validity of mean-field approximations for the dynamics of quantum systems in a large dimensional limit. Our result is a derivation of the large d mean-field limit of the Bose–Hubbard model on a square lattice. The Bose–Hubbard model effectively describes bosons on a lattice with on-site interactions and nearest-neighbour hopping, serving as a foundational framework for understanding strong particle interactions and the superfluid to Mott insulator phase transition. We prove a trace norm estimate between the one-lattice-site reduced density of the Schrödinger dynamics and the mean-field dynamics in the limit of large dimension. Here, the mean-field approximation is in the hopping amplitude and not in the interaction, leading to a very rich and non-trivial mean-field equation. This mean-field equation does not only describe the condensate, as is the case when the mean-field description comes from a large particle number limit averaging out the interaction, but it allows for a phase transition since it contains the full non-trivial interaction. Our work is a rigorous justification of a simple case of the highly successful dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) for bosons, which somewhat surprisingly yields many qualitatively correct results in three dimensions.
The impact of interparticle correlations on the behavior of Bose-Einstein Condensates (BECs) is discussed using two approaches. In the first approach, the wavefunction of a BEC is encoded in the
N-particle sector of an extended "catalytic state". Going to a time-dependent interaction picture, we can organize the effective Hamiltonian by powers of
N−1/2. Requiring the terms of order
N1/2 to vanish, we get the Gross-Pitaevskii Equation. Going to the next order,
N0, we obtain the number-conserving Bogoliubov approximation. Our approach allows one to stay in the Schrödinger picture and to apply many techniques from quantum optics. Moreover, it is easier to track different orders in the Hamiltonian and to generalize to the multi-component case. In the second approach, I consider a state of
N=l×n bosons that is derived by symmetrizing the
n-fold tensor product of an arbitrary
l-boson state. Particularly, we are interested in the pure state case for
l=2, which we call the Pair-Correlated State (PCS). I show that PCS reproduces the number-conserving Bogoliubov approximation; moreover, it also works in the strong interaction regime where the Bogoliubov approximation fails. For the two-site Bose-Hubbard model, I find numerically that the error (measured by the trace distance of the two-particle reduced density matrices) of PCS is less than two percent over the entire parameter space, thus making PCS a bridge between the superfluid and Mott insulating phases. Amazingly, the error of PCS does not increase, in the time-dependent case, as the system evolves for longer times. I derive both time-dependent and -independent equations for the ground state and the time evolution of the PCS ansatz. The time complexity of simulating PCS does not depend on
N and is linear in the number of orbitals in use.