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arXiv:2112.12730 · Communications in Mathematical Physics

Almost Everywhere Ergodicity in Quantum Lattice Models

Dimitrios Ampelogiannis, Benjamin Doyon

Published Oct 30, 2023• 7 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract We rigorously examine, in generality, the ergodic properties of quantum lattice models with short range interactions, in the $$C^*$$ C ∗ algebra formulation of statistical mechanics. Ergodicity results, in the context of group actions on $$C^*$$ C ∗ algebras, assume that the algebra is asymptotically abelian, which is not generically the case for time evolution. The Lieb-Robinson bound tells us that, in a precise sense, the spatial extent of any time-evolved local operator grows linearly with time. This means that the algebra of observables is asymptotically abelian in a space-like region, and implies a form of ergodicity outside the light-cone. But what happens within it? We show that the long-time limit of the n-th moment of a ray-averaged observable, along space-time rays of almost every speed, converges to the n-th power of its expectation in the state (i.e. its ensemble average). Thus ray averages do not fluctuate in the long time limit. This is a statement of ergodicity, and holds in any state that is invariant under space-time translations and that satisfies weak clustering properties in space. The ray averages can be performed in a way that accounts for oscillations, showing that ray-averaged observables cannot sustainably oscillate in the long time limit. We also show that in the GNS representation of the algebra of observables, for any KMS state with the above properties, the long-time limit of the ray average of any observable converges (in the strong operator topology) to the ensemble average times the identity, again along space-time rays of almost every speed. This is a strong version of ergodicity, and indicates that, as operators, observables get “thinner” almost everywhere within the light-cone. A similar statement holds under oscillatory averaging.

DOI
10.1007/s00220-023-04849-9

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Abstract We rigorously examine, in generality, the ergodic properties of quantum lattice models with short range interactions, in the C∗C^*C∗ C ∗ algebra formulation of statistical mechanics. Ergodicity results, in the context of group actions on C∗C^*C∗ C ∗ algebras, assume that the algebra is asymptotically abelian, which is not generically the case for time evolution. The Lieb-Robinson bound tells us that, in a precise sense, the spatial extent of any time-evolved local operator grows linearly with time. This means that the algebra of observables is asymptotically abelian in a space-like region, and implies a form of ergodicity outside the light-cone. But what happens within it? We show that the long-time limit of the n-th moment of a ray-averaged observable, along space-time rays of almost every speed, converges to the n-th power of its expectation in the state (i.e. its ensemble average). Thus ray averages do not fluctuate in the long time limit. This is a statement of ergodicity, and holds in any state that is invariant under space-time translations and that satisfies weak clustering properties in space. The ray averages can be performed in a way that accounts for oscillations, showing that ray-averaged observables cannot sustainably oscillate in the long time limit. We also show that in the GNS representation of the algebra of observables, for any KMS state with the above properties, the long-time limit of the ray average of any observable converges (in the strong operator topology) to the ensemble average times the identity, again along space-time rays of almost every speed. This is a strong version of ergodicity, and indicates that, as operators, observables get “thinner” almost everywhere within the light-cone. A similar statement holds under oscillatory averaging.
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In this letter, we fill a hole in the existing literature about disordered quantum spin systems generated by a random local interaction {h(Z)}Z⋐Zν\{\mathfrak{h}(Z)\}_{Z\Subset \mathbb{Z}^ν}{h(Z)}Z⋐Zν​ satisfying a statistical version of translation invariance. We show such systems always have disordered ground states in the thermodynamic limit with the same symmetry. A key tool we use is a disordered version of the Lieb-Robinson bounds, which hold almost surely under mild conditions on h\mathfrak{h}h. Along the way, we formalize the notion of a random state on a C∗C^*C∗-algebra and prove a weak-∗\ast∗ version of the Riesz-Markov-Kakutani theorem, which seems not to have been recorded in the vector measures literature. As a consequence of the existence of the aforementioned disordered ground states, we show that the spectrum of the GNS Hamiltonain associated to the bulk dynamics is deterministic with respect to the disorder.
Lieb-Robinson bounds show that the speed of propagation of information under the Heisenberg dynamics in a wide class of nonrelativistic quantum lattice systems is essentially bounded. We review works of the past dozen years that has turned this fundamental result into a powerful tool for analyzing quantum lattice systems. We introduce a unified framework for a wide range of applications by studying quasilocality properties of general classes of maps defined on the algebra of local observables of quantum lattice systems. We also consider a number of generalizations that include systems with an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space at each lattice site and Hamiltonians that may involve unbounded on-site contributions. These generalizations require replacing the operator norm topology with the strong operator topology in a number of basic results for the dynamics of quantum lattice systems. The main results in this paper form the basis for a detailed proof of the stability of gapped ground state phases of frustrationfree models satisfying a local topological quantum order condition, which we present in a sequel to this paper.
This thesis analyses several locality properties of extended quantum lattice systems, considering both spins and fermions. We begin by assuming locality of the Hamiltonian and then discuss how this translates into locality of the time evolution and the thermal states. Starting from a local Hamiltonian, it is well known that the Heisenberg time evolution satisfies Lieb-Robinson bounds, which quantify its locality. We strengthen these bounds for long-range interacting fermions and for commuting interactions. Furthermore, we establish the first Lieb-Robinson bounds for Hamiltonians whose local terms can grow linearly away from the origin. We also prove stability of Lieb-Robinson bounds with respect to local perturbations in the Hamiltonian. For the thermal states we focus on three types of locality known as decay of correlations, the local perturbations perturb locally (LPPL) principle and local indistinguishability. As a key tool we use spectral filters, which were introduced by Hastings in the 2000s for various applications. It enable us to use Lieb-Robinson bounds to obtain information about locality properties of states. In particular, we use quantum belief propagation to prove an equivalence of decay of correlations, LPPL and local indistinguishability for Gibbs states at any positive temperature. Using the improved Lieb-Robinson bounds mentioned before, we obtain improvements for decay of correlations in the ground state, the locality of the spectral flow and LPPL for long-range interacting systems and commuting Hamiltonians. Furthermore, we adjust the filter functions to achieve exponential decay for certain applications that were previously limited to stretched exponential decay. Spectral filters are also used to rigorously justify response theory, which usually requires a gapped system to begin with. To relax this assumption, we introduce various notions of local gaps, discuss their relations and use one to justify response theory and Kubo’s formula in the absence of a global gap. In another result we use local indistinguishability as an input to prove bulk-edge correspondence at finite temperature, in the sense that the bulk magnetisation is equal to the edge current. This result has mostly been studied for non-interacting models or at zero temperature before. Finally, we present a class of weakly interacting spin systems with an on-site gap and prove that the ground state satisfies a strong form of LPPL. Moreover, we show that these systems satisfy decay of correlations and local indistinguishability uniformly in temperature.