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arXiv:1502.07086 · Journal of Statistical Mechanics Theory and Experiment

Quantum entropy of systems described by non-Hermitian Hamiltonians

Alessandro Sergi, Konstantin G. Zloshchastiev

Published Mar 1, 2016• 41 citations
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Abstract

Abstract. We study the quantum entropy of systems that are described by general non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, including those which can model the effects of sinks or sources. We generalize the von Neumann entropy to the non-Hermitian case and find that one needs both the normalized and non-normalized density operators in order to properly describe irreversible processes. It turns out that such a generalization monitors the onset of disorder in quantum dissipative systems. We give arguments for why one can consider the generalized entropy as the informational entropy describing the flow of information between the system and the bath. We illustrate the theory by explicitly studying few simple models, including tunneling systems with two energy levels and non-Hermitian detuning.

DOI
10.1088/1742-5468/2016/03/033102

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Abstract. We study the quantum entropy of systems that are described by general non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, including those which can model the effects of sinks or sources. We generalize the von Neumann entropy to the non-Hermitian case and find that one needs both the normalized and non-normalized density operators in order to properly describe irreversible processes. It turns out that such a generalization monitors the onset of disorder in quantum dissipative systems. We give arguments for why one can consider the generalized entropy as the informational entropy describing the flow of information between the system and the bath. We illustrate the theory by explicitly studying few simple models, including tunneling systems with two energy levels and non-Hermitian detuning.
We consider the description of open quantum systems with probability sinks (or sources) in terms of general non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. Within such a framework, we study novel possible definitions of the quantum linear entropy as an indicator of the flow of information during the dynamics. Such linear entropy functionals are necessary in the case of a partially Wigner-transformed non-Hermitian Hamiltonian (which is typically useful within a mixed quantum-classical representation). Both the case of a system represented by a pure non-Hermitian Hamiltonian as well as that of the case of non-Hermitian dynamics in a classical bath are explicitly considered.
In this paper we review an approach to the dynamics of open quantum systems based of non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians arise naturally when one wish to study a subsystem interacting with a continuum of states. Moreover, quantum subsystems with probability sinks or sources are naturally described by non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. Herein, we discuss a non-Hermitian formalism based on the density matrix. We show both how to derive the equations of motion of the density matrix and how to define statistical averages properly. It turns out that the laws of evolution of the normalized density matrix are intrinsically non-linear. We also show how to define correlation functions and a non-Hermitian entropy with a non zero production rate. The formalism has been generalized to the case of hybrid quantum-classical systems using a partial Wigner representation. The equations of motion and the statistical averages are defined analogously to the pure quantum case. However, the definition of the entropy requires to introduce a non-Hermitian linear entropy functional.
From their conception to present times, different concepts and definitions of entropy take key roles in a variety of areas from thermodynamics to information science, and they can be applied to both classical and quantum systems. Among them is the Rényi entropy. It is able to characterize various properties of classical information with a unified concise form. We focus on the quantum counterpart, which unifies the von Neumann entropy, max- and min-entropy, collision entropy, etc. It can only be directly applied to Hermitian systems because it usually requires that the density matrices is normalized. For a non-Hermitian system, the evolved density matrix may not be normalized; i.e., the trace can be larger or less than one as the time evolution. However, it is not well-defined for the Rényi entropy with a non-normalized probability distribution relevant to the density matrix of a non-Hermitian system, especially when the trace of the non-normalized density matrix is larger than one. In this work, we investigate how to describe the Rényi entropy for non-Hermitian systems more appropriately. We obtain a concisely and generalized form of α-Rényi entropy, which we extend the unified order-α from finite positive real numbers to zero and infinity. Our generalized α-Rényi entropy can be directly calculated using both of the normalized and non-normalized density matrices so that it is able to describe non-Hermitian entropy dynamics. We illustrate the necessity of our generalization by showing the differences between ours and the conventional Rényi entropy for non-Hermitian detuning two-level systems.
We consider a quantum oscillator coupled to a bath of NNN other oscillators. The total system evolves with a quasi-Hermitian Hamiltonian. Associated to it is a family of Hermitian systems, parameterized by a unitary map WWW. Our main goal is to find the influence of WWW on the entropy and the entanglement in the Hermitian systems. We calculate explicitly the reduced density matrix of the single oscillator for all Hermitian systems and show that, regardless of WWW, their von Neumann entropy oscillates with a common period which is twice that of the non-Hermitian system. We show that, generically, the oscillator and the bath are entangled for almost all times. While the amount of entanglement depends on the choice of WWW, the entanglement of the time-averaged density matrix is entirely independent of WWW. These results describe some universality in the physical properties of all Hermitian systems associated to a given non-Hermitian one.
We consider a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian in order to effectively describe a two-level system (TLS) coupled to a generic dissipative environment. The total Hamiltonian of the model is obtained by adding a general anti-Hermitian part, depending on four parameters, to the Hermitian Hamiltonian of a tunneling TLS. The time evolution is formulated and derived in terms of the normalized density operator of the model, different types of decays are revealed and analyzed. In particular, the population difference and coherence are defined and calculated analytically. We have been able to mimic various physical situations with different properties, such as dephasing, vanishing population difference and purification.
We find a different effect for the behavior of von Neumann entropy. For this we derive the framework for describing von Neumann entropy in non-Hermitian quantum systems and then apply it to a simple interacting PTPTPT-symmetric bosonic system. We show that our model is well defined even in the PTPTPT-broken regime with the introduction of a time-dependent metric and that it displays three distinct behaviors relating to the PTPTPT symmetry of the original time-independent Hamiltonian. When the symmetry is unbroken, the entropy undergoes rapid decay to zero (so-called ``sudden death'') with a subsequent revival. At the exceptional point it decays asymptotically to zero and when the symmetry is spontaneously broken it decays asymptotically to a finite constant value (``eternal life'').