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arXiv:2103.06646 · Physical review. E

Nontrivial damping of quantum many-body dynamics

Tjark Heitmann, Jonas Richter, Jochen Gemmer B, Robin Steinigeweg

Published Nov 30, 2021• 4 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Understanding how the dynamics of a given quantum system with many degrees of freedom is altered by the presence of a generic perturbation is a notoriously difficult question. Recent works predict that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the unperturbed dynamics is just damped by a simple function, e.g., exponentially as expected from Fermi's golden rule. While these predictions rely on random-matrix arguments and typicality, they can only be verified for a specific physical situation by comparing to the actual solution or measurement. Crucially, it also remains unclear how frequent and under which conditions counterexamples to the typical behavior occur. In this work, we discuss this question from the perspective of projection-operator techniques, where exponential damping of a density matrix occurs in the interaction picture but not necessarily in the Schrödinger picture. We show that a nontrivial damping in the Schrödinger picture can emerge if the dynamics in the unperturbed system possesses rich features, for instance due to the presence of strong interactions. This suggestion has consequences for the time dependence of correlation functions. We substantiate our theoretical arguments by large-scale numerical simulations of charge transport in the extended Fermi-Hubbard chain, where the nearest-neighbor interactions are treated as a perturbation to the integrable reference system.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.104.054145

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Understanding how the dynamics of a given quantum system with many degrees of freedom is altered by the presence of a generic perturbation is a notoriously difficult question. Recent works predict that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the unperturbed dynamics is just damped by a simple function, e.g., exponentially as expected from Fermi's golden rule. While these predictions rely on random-matrix arguments and typicality, they can only be verified for a specific physical situation by comparing to the actual solution or measurement. Crucially, it also remains unclear how frequent and under which conditions counterexamples to the typical behavior occur. In this work, we discuss this question from the perspective of projection-operator techniques, where exponential damping of a density matrix occurs in the interaction picture but not necessarily in the Schrödinger picture. We show that a nontrivial damping in the Schrödinger picture can emerge if the dynamics in the unperturbed system possesses rich features, for instance due to the presence of strong interactions. This suggestion has consequences for the time dependence of correlation functions. We substantiate our theoretical arguments by large-scale numerical simulations of charge transport in the extended Fermi-Hubbard chain, where the nearest-neighbor interactions are treated as a perturbation to the integrable reference system.
Since perturbations are omnipresent in physics, understanding their impact on the dynamics of quantum many-body systems is a vitally important but notoriously difficult question. On the one hand, random-matrix and typicality arguments suggest a rather simple damping in the overwhelming majority of cases, e.g., exponential damping according to Fermi's golden rule. On the other hand, counterexamples are known to exist, and it remains unclear how frequent and under which conditions such counterexamples appear. In our work, we consider the spin-1/2 XXZ chain as a paradigmatic example of a quantum many-body system and study the dynamics of the magnetization current in the easy-axis regime. Using numerical simulations based on dynamical quantum typicality, we show that the standard autocorrelation function is damped in a nontrivial way and only a modified version of this function is damped in a simple manner. Employing projection-operator techniques in addition, we demonstrate that both the nontrivial and simple damping relation can be understood on perturbative grounds. Our results are in agreement with earlier findings for the particle current in the Hubbard chain.
Given a quantum many-body system and the expectation-value dynamics of some operator, we study how this reference dynamics is altered due to a perturbation of the system's Hamiltonian. Based on projection operator techniques, we unveil that if the perturbation exhibits a random-matrix structure in the eigenbasis of the unperturbed Hamiltonian, then this perturbation effectively leads to an exponential damping of the original dynamics. Employing a combination of dynamical quantum typicality and numerical linked cluster expansions, we demonstrate that our theoretical findings for random matrices can, in some cases, be relevant for the dynamics of realistic quantum many-body models as well. Specifically, we study the decay of current autocorrelation functions in spin-1/2 ladder systems, where the rungs of the ladder are treated as a perturbation to the otherwise uncoupled legs. We find a convincing agreement between the exact dynamics and the lowest-order prediction over a wide range of interchain couplings.
We perform a comparative study of exact and approximate time-evolved densities in small Hubbard chains. The approximate densities are obtained via many-body perturbation theory (Hartree-Fock, 2nd Born, GW and T-matrix approximations) within the framework of the time-dependent Kadanoff-Baym equations. Benchmarking approximate results against exact ones allows us to address two rather fundamental issues in the non equilibrium dynamics of strongly correlated systems. I) A characterisation of the performance of several standard MBAs in the non-equilibrium regime. Having a definite notion of how good a specific MBA can be is highly relevant to its application to cases (typically, infinite systems) where exact solutions are not available. Our results show that the T-matrix approximation is overall superior to the other MBAs, at all electron densities. II) A scrutiny of the whole idea of Many Body Perturbation Theory in the Kadanoff-Baym sense, when applied to finite systems. The surprising outcome of our study is that during the time evolution, the KBE develop an unphysical steady state solution. This is a genuinely novel feature of the time-dependent KBE, i.e. is not inherited from possible limitations/approximations in the calculation of the initial state. Our extensive numerical characterisation gives robust evidence that the problem occurs in general, whenever MBPT is applied to finite systems, and approximate self energies based upon infinite partial summations are used. We also offer some more conceptual and general consideration on the dependence of this behaviour on the number of particles and system size. This is followed by our conclusions and glimpses of future work.
Abstract We substantially extend our relaxation theory for perturbed many-body quantum systems from ((2020) Phys. Rev. Lett. 124 120602) by establishing an analytical prediction for the time-dependent observable expectation values which depends on only two characteristic parameters of the perturbation operator: its overall strength and its range or band width. Compared to the previous theory, a significantly larger range of perturbation strengths is covered. The results are obtained within a typicality framework by solving the pertinent random matrix problem exactly for a certain class of banded perturbations and by demonstrating the (approximative) universality of these solutions, which allows us to adopt them to considerably more general classes of perturbations. We also verify the prediction by comparison with several numerical examples.
In modern quantum many-body physics, the Kadanoff-Baym equations have become a crucial component in the treatment of strongly and weakly correlated systems far from equilibrium. From the one-particle Green function GGG(ttt,${t}^{\ensuremath{'}}$), they allow for the calculation of time-dependent expectation values of all one-particle observables and the total energy. In this work, for isolated Coulomb systems, the numerical behavior of the Kadanoff-Baym equations is investigated. The electron density dynamics are damped to an unphysical homogeneous density distribution, across both the linear and nonlinear response regimes. Unphysical features are shown to exist for $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}$-derivable self-energy approximations, such as Hartree-Fock, second-Born, or $G\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}W$, in Hubbard and Coulomb systems, irrespective of interaction strength. With this degree of universality, these findings are pertinent to all two-time formalisms, and suggest the need for a different approach to the dynamics of quantum systems.
A large number of multifaceted quantum transport processes in molecular systems and physical nanosystems can be treated in terms of quantum relaxation processes which couple to one or several fluctuating environments. A thermal equilibrium environment can conveniently be modelled by a thermal bath of harmonic oscillators. An archetype situation provides a two-state dissipative quantum dynamics, commonly known under the label of a spin-boson dynamics. An interesting and nontrivial physical situation emerges, however, when the quantum dynamics evolves far away from thermal equilibrium. This occurs, for example, when a charge transferring medium possesses nonequilibrium degrees of freedom, or when a strong time-dependent control field is applied externally. Accordingly, certain parameters of underlying quantum subsystem acquire stochastic character. Herein, we review the general theoretical framework which is based on the method of projector operators, yielding the quantum master equations for systems that are exposed to strong external fields. This allows one to investigate on a common basis the influence of nonequilibrium fluctuations and periodic electrical fields on quantum transport processes. Most importantly, such strong fluctuating fields induce a whole variety of nonlinear and nonequilibrium phenomena. A characteristic feature of such dynamics is the absence of thermal (quantum) detailed balance.