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arXiv:1702.06979 · Physical review. E

Work distributions for random sudden quantum quenches

Marcin Łobejko, J. Łuczka, Peter Talkner A

Published May 23, 2017• 22 citations
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Abstract

The statistics of work performed on a system by a sudden random quench is investigated. Considering systems with finite dimensional Hilbert spaces we model a sudden random quench by randomly choosing elements from a Gaussian unitary ensemble (GUE) consisting of Hermitian matrices with identically, Gaussian distributed matrix elements. A probability density function (pdf) of work in terms of initial and final energy distributions is derived and evaluated for a two-level system. Explicit results are obtained for quenches with a sharply given initial Hamiltonian, while the work pdfs for quenches between Hamiltonians from two independent GUEs can only be determined in explicit form in the limits of zero and infinite temperature. The same work distribution as for a sudden random quench is obtained for an adiabatic, i.e., infinitely slow, protocol connecting the same initial and final Hamiltonians.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.95.052137

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The statistics of work performed on a system by a sudden random quench is investigated. Considering systems with finite dimensional Hilbert spaces we model a sudden random quench by randomly choosing elements from a Gaussian unitary ensemble (GUE) consisting of Hermitian matrices with identically, Gaussian distributed matrix elements. A probability density function (pdf) of work in terms of initial and final energy distributions is derived and evaluated for a two-level system. Explicit results are obtained for quenches with a sharply given initial Hamiltonian, while the work pdfs for quenches between Hamiltonians from two independent GUEs can only be determined in explicit form in the limits of zero and infinite temperature. The same work distribution as for a sudden random quench is obtained for an adiabatic, i.e., infinitely slow, protocol connecting the same initial and final Hamiltonians.
Work in isolated quantum systems is a random variable and its probability distribution function obeys the celebrated fluctuation theorems of Crooks and Jarzynski. In this study, we provide a simple way to describe the work probability distribution function for sudden quench processes in quantum systems with large Hilbert spaces. This description can be constructed from two elements: the level density of the initial Hamiltonian, and a smoothed strength function that provides information about the influence of the perturbation over the eigenvectors in the quench process, and is especially suited to describe quantum many-body interacting systems. We also show how random models can be used to find such smoothed work probability distribution and apply this approach to different one-dimensional spin-1/2 chain models. Our findings provide an accurate description of the work distribution of such systems in the cases of intermediate and high temperatures in both chaotic and integrable regimes.
In the context of nonequilibrium quantum thermodynamics, variables like work behave stochastically. A particular definition of the work probability density function (pdf) for coherent quantum processes allows the verification of the quantum version of the celebrated fluctuation theorems, due to Jarzynski and Crooks, that apply when the system is driven away from an initial equilibrium thermal state. Such a particular pdf depends basically on the details of the initial and final Hamiltonians, on the temperature of the initial thermal state, and on how some external parameter is changed during the coherent process. Using random matrix theory we derive a simple analytic expression that describes the general behavior of the work characteristic function G(u), associated with this particular work pdf for sudden quenches, valid for all the traditional Gaussian ensembles of Hamiltonians matrices. This formula well describes the general behavior of G(u) calculated from single draws of the initial and final Hamiltonians in all ranges of temperatures.
We study the nonequilibrium dynamics of the Luttinger model after a quantum quench, when the initial state is a finite temperature thermal equilibrium state. The diagonal elements of the density matrix in the steady state show thermal features for high temperature initial states only, otherwise they retain highly nonthermal character. The time evolution of Uhlmann fidelity, which measures the distance between the time evolved and initial states, is evaluated for arbitrary initial temperatures and quench protocols. In the long time limit, the overlap between the time evolved and initial system decreases exponentially with the temperature with a universal prefactor. Within perturbation theory, the statistics of final total energy and work are numerically evaluated in the case of a sudden quench, which yield identical distributions at zero temperature. In both statistics, temperature effects are more significant in small systems. The Dirac-$\ensuremath{\delta}$ peak at the adiabatic ground state energy remains present in the probability distribution of the total energy, but disappears from the work distribution at nonzero initial temperatures.
We analyze the probability distribution function (PDF) of work done on a Luttinger liquid for an arbitrary finite duration interaction quench and show that it can be described in terms of a generalized Gibbs ensemble. We construct the corresponding density matrix with explicit intermode correlations, and determine the duration and interaction dependence of the probability of an adiabatic transition and the PDF of nonadiabatic processes. In the thermodynamic limit, the PDF of work exhibits a non-Gaussian maximum around the excess heat, carrying almost all the spectral weight. In contrast, in the small system limit most spectral weight is carried by a delta peak at the energy of the adiabatic process, and an oscillating PDF with dips at energies commensurate to the quench duration and with an exponential envelope develops. Relevance to cold atom experiments is also discussed.
We investigate the non-equilibrium work statistics originating from a sudden quench in a bosonic Josephson junction. In particular, by employing the Holstein-Primakoff approximation, the work statistics are analytically characterized in the weak-interaction regime, where the dynamics map onto a time-dependent quantum harmonic oscillator. For a junction initialized in the ground state of the pre-quench Hamiltonian, we demonstrate that the work statistics are governed by a negative binomial distribution, as occurs in fully-connected models driven across a critical point. Furthermore, we also consider initial superposition states containing quantum coherences in the energy basis. To characterize the corresponding work distributions, we employ Kirkwood-Dirac quasiprobabilities (KDQ). Even in the simplest case, when the junction is initialized in a superposition of the ground and second excited states, the KDQ distribution of work exhibits negative or complex values, reflecting non-classical features. Moreover, the coherence content of the initial state can be optimized to enhance the extractable work extracted from the quench, beyond classical bounds. Finally, we propose an experimental interferometric protocol to directly measure the characteristic function of the work distribution in experimentally accessible settings.
Abstract We numerically investigate statistical ensembles for the occupations of eigenstates of an isolated quantum system emerging as a result of quantum quenches. The systems investigated are sparse random matrix Hamiltonians and disordered lattices. In the former case, the quench consists of sudden switching‐on the off‐diagonal elements of the Hamiltonian. In the latter case, it is sudden switching‐on of the hopping between adjacent lattice sites. The quench‐induced ensembles are compared with the so‐called “quantum micro‐canonical” (QMC) ensemble describing quantum superpositions with fixed energy expectation values. Our main finding is that quantum quenches with sparse random matrices having one special diagonal element lead to the condensation phenomenon predicted for the QMC ensemble. Away from the QMC condensation regime, the overall agreement with the QMC predictions is only qualitative for both random matrices and disordered lattices but with some cases of a very good quantitative agreement. In the case of disordered lattices, the QMC ensemble can be used to estimate the probability of finding a particle in a localized or delocalized eigenstate.