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arXiv:1710.04429 · Physical Review A

Oscillating potential well in the complex plane and the adiabatic theorem

Stefano Longhi

Published Oct 2, 2017• 7 citations
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Abstract

A quantum particle in a slowly changing potential well $V(x,t)=V(x\ensuremath{-}{x}_{0}(\ensuremath{\epsilon}t))$, periodically shaken in time at a slow frequency $\ensuremath{\epsilon}$, provides an important quantum mechanical system where the adiabatic theorem fails to predict the asymptotic dynamics over time scales longer than $\ensuremath{\sim}1/\ensuremath{\epsilon}$. Specifically, we consider a double-well potential $V(x)$ sustaining two bound states spaced in frequency by ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}$ and periodically shaken in a complex plane. Two different spatial displacements ${x}_{0}(t)$ are assumed: the real spatial displacement ${x}_{0}(\ensuremath{\epsilon}t)=Asin(\ensuremath{\epsilon}t)$, corresponding to ordinary Hermitian shaking, and the complex one ${x}_{0}(\ensuremath{\epsilon}t)=A\ensuremath{-}Aexp(\ensuremath{-}i\ensuremath{\epsilon}t)$, corresponding to non-Hermitian shaking. When the particle is initially prepared in the ground state of the potential well, breakdown of adiabatic evolution is found for both Hermitian and non-Hermitian shaking whenever the oscillation frequency $\ensuremath{\epsilon}$ is close to an odd resonance of ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}$. However, a different physical mechanism underlying nonadiabatic transitions is found in the two cases. For the Hermitian shaking, an avoided crossing of quasienergies is observed at odd resonances and nonadiabatic transitions between the two bound states, resulting in Rabi flopping, can be explained as a multiphoton resonance process. For the complex oscillating potential well, breakdown of adiabaticity arises from the appearance of Floquet exceptional points at exact quasienergy crossing.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.96.042101

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A quantum particle in a slowly changing potential well V(x,t)=V(x\ensuremath−x0(\ensuremathϵt))V(x,t)=V(x\ensuremath{-}{x}_{0}(\ensuremath{\epsilon}t))V(x,t)=V(x\ensuremath−x0​(\ensuremathϵt)), periodically shaken in time at a slow frequency \ensuremathϵ\ensuremath{\epsilon}\ensuremathϵ, provides an important quantum mechanical system where the adiabatic theorem fails to predict the asymptotic dynamics over time scales longer than \ensuremath∼1/\ensuremathϵ\ensuremath{\sim}1/\ensuremath{\epsilon}\ensuremath∼1/\ensuremathϵ. Specifically, we consider a double-well potential V(x)V(x)V(x) sustaining two bound states spaced in frequency by \ensuremathω0{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}\ensuremathω0​ and periodically shaken in a complex plane. Two different spatial displacements x0(t){x}_{0}(t)x0​(t) are assumed: the real spatial displacement x0(\ensuremathϵt)=Asin(\ensuremathϵt){x}_{0}(\ensuremath{\epsilon}t)=Asin(\ensuremath{\epsilon}t)x0​(\ensuremathϵt)=Asin(\ensuremathϵt), corresponding to ordinary Hermitian shaking, and the complex one x0(\ensuremathϵt)=A\ensuremath−Aexp(\ensuremath−i\ensuremathϵt){x}_{0}(\ensuremath{\epsilon}t)=A\ensuremath{-}Aexp(\ensuremath{-}i\ensuremath{\epsilon}t)x0​(\ensuremathϵt)=A\ensuremath−Aexp(\ensuremath−i\ensuremathϵt), corresponding to non-Hermitian shaking. When the particle is initially prepared in the ground state of the potential well, breakdown of adiabatic evolution is found for both Hermitian and non-Hermitian shaking whenever the oscillation frequency \ensuremathϵ\ensuremath{\epsilon}\ensuremathϵ is close to an odd resonance of \ensuremathω0{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}\ensuremathω0​. However, a different physical mechanism underlying nonadiabatic transitions is found in the two cases. For the Hermitian shaking, an avoided crossing of quasienergies is observed at odd resonances and nonadiabatic transitions between the two bound states, resulting in Rabi flopping, can be explained as a multiphoton resonance process. For the complex oscillating potential well, breakdown of adiabaticity arises from the appearance of Floquet exceptional points at exact quasienergy crossing.
Nontrivial spectral properties of non-Hermitian systems can give rise to intriguing effects that lack counterparts in Hermitian systems. For instance, when dynamically varying system parameters along a path enclosing an exceptional point (EP), chiral mode conversion occurs. A recent study [Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 113802 (2024)] demonstrates the achievability of pure adiabatic state transfer by specifically selecting a trajectory in the system parameter space where the corresponding evolution operator exhibits a real spectrum while winding around an EP. However, the intended adiabatic state transfer becomes fragile when taking into account the effect of the nonadiabatic transition. In this work, we propose a scheme for achieving robust and rapid adiabatic state transfer in time-modulated two-level non-Hermitian systems by appropriately modulating the system Hamiltonian and time-evolution trajectory. Numerical simulations confirm that a complete adiabatic transfer can always be achieved even under nonadiabatic conditions after one period for different initialized adiabatic states, and the scheme remains insensitive to moderate fluctuations in control parameters. Therefore, this scheme offers alternative approaches for quantum-state engineering in non-Hermitian systems.
In this talk we present a model to demonstrate how time-periodic potential can be used to manipulate quantum metastability of a system. We study metastability of a particle trapped in a well with a time-periodically oscillating barrier in the Floquet formalism. It is shown that the oscillating barrier causes the system to decay faster in general. However, avoided crossings of metastable states can occur with the less stable states crossing over to the more stable ones. If in the static well there exists a bound state, then it is possible to stabilize a metastable state by adiabatically increasing the oscillating frequency of the barrier so that the unstable state eventually cross-over to the stable bound state. It is also found that increasing the amplitude of the oscillating field may change a direct crossing of states into an avoided one. Hence, one can manipulate the stability of different states in a quantum potential by a combination of adiabatic changes of the frequency and the amplitude of the oscillating barrier.
Metastability of a particle trapped in a well with a time-periodically oscillating barrier is studied in the Floquet formalism. It is shown that the oscillating barrier causes the system to decay faster in general. However, avoided crossings of metastable states can occur with the less stable states crossing over to the more stable ones. If in the static well there exists a bound state, then it is possible to stabilize a metastable state by adiabatically increasing the oscillating frequency of the barrier so that the unstable state will eventually cross over to the stable bound state. It is also found that increasing the amplitude of the oscillating field may change a direct crossing of states into an avoided one.
This paper is concerned with the problem of calculating amplitudes for nonadiabatic transitions induced by a time-dependent Hamiltonian, in the semiclassical limit h/→0, with emphasis on questions relevant to semiclassical theories of electronically inelastic scattering. For this problem the semiclassical limit is mathematically equivalent to the adiabatic limit, and the adiabatic theorem says that all these transition amplitudes vanish in the limit; the question is, what is the asymptotic form of the nonadiabatic amplitudes, as they go to zero? We consider Hamiltonia that are analytic matrix functions of time. We prove a generalization of the adiabatic theorem to the complex time plane; paradoxically, the adiabatic theorem in the complex plane gives us directly the nonadiabatic amplitudes along the real time axis. We derive Dykhne’s remarkable formula for the two-state case, which says that the limiting form of the transition amplitude depends only on the energy curves of the two states, not on the nonadiabatic coupling which is responsible for transition between them. We discuss the three-state problem at length and show that the obvious generalization of the Dykhne formula is sometimes true, sometimes false. To indicate the scope of methods based on the adiabatic theorem in the complex plane, we give an elementary proof of the semiclassical formula for above-barrier reflection of a one-dimensional particle.
We explore the near adiabatic dynamics in a non-Hermitian quantum many-body system by investigating a finite-time ramp of the imaginary vector potential in the interacting Hatano-Nelson model. The excess energy, the Loschmidt echo, and the density imbalance are analyzed using bosonization and exact diagonalization. The energy becomes complex valued, despite the instantaneous Hamiltonian having the same real spectrum throughout. The adiabatic limit is approached very slowly through damped oscillations. The decay scales with ${\ensuremath{\tau}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ with $\ensuremath{\tau}$ the ramp duration, while the oscillation period is 2L/v2L/v2L/v with vvv the Fermi velocity and LLL the system length. Yet, without the need for auxiliary controls, a shortcut to adiabaticity is found for ramp times commensurate with the period. Our work highlights the intricate interplay of adiabaticity and non-Hermitian many-body physics.
In recent years, there have been intensive studies of non-Hermitian physics and parity–time (PT) symmetry due to their fundamental importance in theory and outstanding applications. A distinctive character in PT-symmetric system is phase transition (spontaneous PT-symmetry breaking), i.e. an all-real energy spectrum changes into an all-complex one when the non-Hermitian parameter exceeds a certain threshold. However, the conditions for PT-symmetric system with real energy spectrum to occur are rather restrictive. The generalization of PT-symmetric potentials to wider classes of non-PT-symmetric complex potentials with all-real energy spectra is a currently important endeavor. A simple PT-symmetric two-level Floquet quantum system is now being actively explored, because it holds potential for the realization of non-unitary single-qubit quantum gate. However, studies of the evolution dynamics of non-PT-symmetric two-level non-Hermitian Floquet quantum system are still relatively rare. In this paper, we investigate the non-Hermitian physics of a periodically driven non-PT-symmetric two-level quantum system. By phase-space analysis, we find that there exist so-called pseudo fixed points in phase space representing the Floquet solutions with fixed population difference and a time-dependent relative phase between the two levels. According to these pseudo fixed points, we analytically construct a non-unitary evolution operator and then explore the dynamic behaviors of the non-PT-symmetric two-level quantum system in different parameter regions. We confirm both analytically and numerically that the two-level non-Hermitian Floquet quantum system, although it is non-parity-time-symmetric, still features a phase transition with the quasienergy spectrum changing from all-real to all-complex energy spectrum, just like the PT symmetric system. Furthermore, we reveal that a novel phenomenon called quasi-PT symmetric dynamics occurs in the time evolution process. The quasi-PT symmetric dynamics is so named in our paper, in the sense that the time-evolution of population probabilities in the non-PT-symmetric two-level system satisfies fully the time-space symmetry (PT symmetry), while time-evolution of the quantum state (containing the phase) does not meet such a PT symmetry, due to the fact that time-evolution of the phases of the probability amplitudes on the two levels violates the requirement for the PT symmetry.