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arXiv:1405.2237 · Physical Review A

Dynamics of fluctuations in a quantum system

Yi-Jen Chen, Stefan Pabst, Zheng Li, Oriol Vendrell, Robin Santra

Published May 14, 2014• 4 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

``The noise is the signal'' [R. Landauer, Nature (London) 392, 658 (1998)] emphasizes the rich information content encoded in fluctuations. This paper assesses the dynamical role of fluctuations of a quantum system driven far from equilibrium, with laser-aligned molecules as a physical realization. Time evolutions of the expectation value and the uncertainty of a standard observable are computed quantum mechanically and classically. We demonstrate the intricate dynamics of the uncertainty that are strikingly independent of those of the expectation value, and their exceptional sensitivity to quantum properties of the system. In general, detecting the time evolution of the fluctuations of a given observable provides information on the dynamics of correlations in a quantum system.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.89.052113

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``The noise is the signal'' [R. Landauer, Nature (London) 392, 658 (1998)] emphasizes the rich information content encoded in fluctuations. This paper assesses the dynamical role of fluctuations of a quantum system driven far from equilibrium, with laser-aligned molecules as a physical realization. Time evolutions of the expectation value and the uncertainty of a standard observable are computed quantum mechanically and classically. We demonstrate the intricate dynamics of the uncertainty that are strikingly independent of those of the expectation value, and their exceptional sensitivity to quantum properties of the system. In general, detecting the time evolution of the fluctuations of a given observable provides information on the dynamics of correlations in a quantum system.
When an isolated quantum system is driven out of equilibrium, expectation values of general observables start oscillating in time. This article reviews the general theory of such temporal fluctuations. We first survey some results on the strength of such temporal fluctuations. For example temporal fluctuations are exponentially small in the system's volume for generic systems whereas they fall-off algebraically in integrable systems. We then concentrate on the the so-called quench scenario where the system is driven out-of-equilibrium under the application of a sudden perturbation. For sufficiently small perturbations, temporal fluctuations of physical observables can be characterized in full generality and can be used as an effective tool to probe quantum criticality of the underlying model. In the off-critical region the distribution becomes Gaussian. Close to criticality the distribution becomes a universal function uniquely characterized by a single critical exponent, that we compute explicitly. This contrasts standard equilibrium quantum fluctuations for which the critical distribution depends on a numerable set of critical coefficients and is known only for limited examples. The possibility of using temporal fluctuations to determine pseudo-critical boundaries in optical lattice experiments is further reviewed.
When an isolated quantum system is driven out of equilibrium, expectation values of general observables start oscillating in time. This paper reviews the general theory of such temporal fluctuations. We first survey some results on the strength of such temporal fluctuations. For example temporal fluctuations are exponentially small in the system's volume for generic systems whereas they fall-off algebraically in integrable systems. We then concentrate on the so-called quench scenario where the system is driven out-of-equilibrium under the application of a sudden perturbation. For sufficiently small perturbations, temporal fluctuations of physical observables can be characterized in full generality and can be used as an effective tool to probe quantum criticality of the underlying model. In the off-critical region the distribution becomes Gaussian. Close to criticality the distribution becomes a universal function uniquely characterized by a single critical exponent, that we compute explicitly. This contrasts standard equilibrium quantum fluctuations for which the critical distribution depends on a numerable set of critical coefficients and is known only for limited examples. The possibility of using temporal fluctuations to determine pseudo-critical boundaries in optical lattice experiments is further reviewed.
It is shown that the vacuum state of weakly interacting quantum field theories can be described, in the Heisenberg picture, as a linear combination of randomly distributed incoherent paths that obey classical equations of motion with constrained initial conditions. We call such paths ``pseudoclassical'' paths and use them to define the dynamics of quantum fluctuations. Every physical observable is assigned a time-dependent value on each path in a way that respects the uncertainty principle, but in consequence, some of the standard algebraic relations between quantum observables are not necessarily satisfied by their time-dependent values on paths. We define ``collective observables'' which depend on a large number of independent degrees of freedom and show that the dynamics of their quantum fluctuations can be described in terms of unconstrained classical stochastic processes without reference to any additional external system or to an environment. Our analysis can be generalized to states other than the vacuum. Finally, we compare our formalism to the formalism of coherent states and highlight their differences.
The impact of control field fluctuations on the optimal manipulation of quantum dynamics phenomena is investigated. The quantum system is driven by an optimal control field, with the physical focus on the evolving expectation value of an observable operator. A relationship is shown to exist between the system dynamics and the control field fluctuations, wherein the process of seeking optimal performance assures an inherent degree of system robustness to such fluctuations. The presence of significant field fluctuations breaks down the evolution of the observable expectation value into a sequence of partially coherent robust steps. Robustness occurs because the optimization process reduces sensitivity to noise-driven quantum system fluctuations by taking advantage of the observable expectation value being bilinear in the evolution operator and its adjoint. The consequences of this inherent robustness are discussed in the light of recent experiments and numerical simulations on the optimal control of quantum phenomena. The analysis in this paper bodes well for the future success of closed-loop quantum optimal control experiments, even in the presence of reasonable levels of field fluctuations.
Recently, the possibility of investigating single molecule, or single spin observables, as well as the necessity of a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying quantum dynamics in order to obtain nanoscale devices and nanostructered materials suitable for quantum computing tasks, have revived the interest in foundational aspects of quantum statistical mechanics. This thesis aims to give a contribution to this field by re-considering the statistical characterization of a quantum system at the light of some paradigmatic changes in our understanding of quantum theory which have taken place in the last two decades. In particular the impressive development of quantum information theory has changed the perceptions of quantum entanglement: for a long time it has been considered a somewhat paradoxical property of the matter at the atomic scale, but now it is regarded as an essential and ubiquitous phenomenon whose consequences are affecting the very macroscopic world that we experience. Still the decoherence program has brought out the importance of considering a quantum system together with its environment in order to clarify some key aspects of quantum dynamics. Thus, we start from the idea that quantum correlations are ubiquitous and somewhat uncontrollable in systems with many degrees of freedom which are typically considered in statistical mechanics. As a consequence we assume the standpoint that quantum statistical mechanics has not to be based on the underlying idea of a collection of many, independent quantum systems but rather it has to emerge at the level of a global wavefunction (pure state) which describes the system as well as its environment as a whole. In order to investigate the consequences of these assumptions we study the equilibrium distribution of an isolated quantum system. This is defined, in analogy with the ergodic foundations of classical statistical mechanics, on the basis of the time evolution of the quantum state. Then, we study the emergence of thermodynamic properties in a quantum system by studying the probability distribution of some function of interests, as the entropy and the equilibrium state of a subsystem, on Ensembles of Pure States. Such a probability distribution is derived from the geometry of the Hilbert space, and the theoretical tools suitable for its characterization are developed. On the one hand we perform a numerical sampling of the ensemble distributions by employing Monte Carlo techniques, on the other hand simpler analytical approximation of the geometrical distributions are derived by means of a maximum entropy principle. Model systems composed of an ensemble of spins are chosen to illustrate the salient features which emerge from the developed theoretical framework: the main point is that the Ensemble Distributions of “thermodynamic observables” (entropy or equilibrium state of a subsystem) are sharply peaked around a typical value. From the analysis it emerges that each of the overwhelming majority of the wavefunctions which has appreciable weight in the considered ensemble, is characterized by the same value of the “macroscopic” functions. This is a striking evidence of the “typicality” of these properties. In the essence, our impossibility to know the state of the system in detail does not matter, just for the remarkable fact that almost all quantum states behave essentially in the same way. By virtue of this typicality the study of the behaviour of the typical values of the thermodynamic function become meaningful. Notably, under certain conditions, one recovers the results of standard statistical mechanics, that is, the equilibrium average of the state of a subsystem can be cast in the Boltzmann canonical form at the temperature given by the usual thermodynamical relation . In the second part of the thesis we consider the dynamical aspects of the equilibrium state of a subsystem interacting with its environment. The fluctuations around the equilibrium average critically depends on the entanglement between the system and the environment and on the form of the interaction Hamiltonian. The connection between the dynamics of the fluctuations of an observable at the equilibrium and the relaxation toward the equilibrium from a “non typical” initial value is also investigated with the aid of simple model systems. The study presented in this thesis was partly motivated by a critical analysis of the statistical methods available for the theoretical modelling of magnetic resonance experiments. One of these, the Stochastic Liouville Equation, has been employed in a work completed during the first year of my Ph.D. program in order to interpret some feature of a two dimensional electron spin resonance experiment, [Fresch B., Frezzato D., Moro G. J., Kothe G., Freed J. H.; J. Phys. Chem. B., 110, 24238, (2006)].
The impact of control field fluctuations on the optimal manipulation of quantum dynamics phenomena is investigated. The presence of significant field fluctuations is shown to break down the evolution into a sequence of partially coherent robust steps. Robustness occurs because the optimization process reduces sensitivity to noise-driven quantum system fluctuations. This process takes advantage of the observable expectation value being bilinear in the evolution operator and its adjoint. The consequences of this inherent robustness bodes well for the future success of closed loop quantum optimal control experiments.