Numerical simulation of large-scale nonlinear open quantum mechanics
Marc Roda-Llordes, Davide Candoli, Piotr T. Grochowski, Andreu Riera-Campeny, Thomas E. G. Agrenius, Juan José García‐Ripoll, Carlos Gonzalez-Ballestero, Oriol Romero‐Isart
We introduce a method to solve nonlinear open quantum dynamics of a particle in situations where its state undergoes significant expansion in phase space while generating small quantum features at the phase-space Planck scale. Our approach involves simulating two steps. First, we transform the Wigner function into a time-dependent frame that leverages information from the classical trajectory to efficiently represent the quantum state in phase space. Next, we simulate the dynamics in this frame using a numerical method that implements this time-dependent nonlinear change of variables. To demonstrate the capabilities of our method, we examine the open quantum dynamics of a particle evolving in a one-dimensional weak quartic potential after initially being ground-state cooled in a tight harmonic potential. This approach is particularly relevant to ongoing efforts to design, optimize, and understand experiments targeting the preparation of macroscopic quantum superposition states of massive particles through nonlinear quantum dynamics. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
We introduce a method to solve nonlinear open quantum dynamics of a particle in situations where its state undergoes significant expansion in phase space while generating small quantum features at the phase-space Planck scale. Our approach involves simulating two steps. First, we transform the Wigner function into a time-dependent frame that leverages information from the classical trajectory to efficiently represent the quantum state in phase space. Next, we simulate the dynamics in this frame using a numerical method that implements this time-dependent nonlinear change of variables. To demonstrate the capabilities of our method, we examine the open quantum dynamics of a particle evolving in a one-dimensional weak quartic potential after initially being ground-state cooled in a tight harmonic potential. This approach is particularly relevant to ongoing efforts to design, optimize, and understand experiments targeting the preparation of macroscopic quantum superposition states of massive particles through nonlinear quantum dynamics. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Open quantum systems have drawn attention over decades due to its applicability in the foundation of theoretical physics, e.g. statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics and condensed matter physics. The dynamics of open quantum systems has been described as separate entities from their surrounding environment that consists of a very large number of modes, somehow coupled to the mode of the system. Even though the exact solution of the dynamical behavior of the system is impossible to calculate, we obtain a tentative solution using the crucial Markov approximation. The input-output formalism of the quantum Langevin equation (QLE) has been considered as a useful tool which provides a semi-classical description of the dynamics of the system, whereas the master equation provides a complete picture of the dynamics of the system expressed in terms of density matrix. While studying the dynamics of nonlinear system/environment coupling using QLE, we see, for a small value of external field, that the steady state system field does not change much from the steady state field obtained in the absence of nonlinear dissipation. However, in a case where a stronger external field is applied, we see that the deviation becomes substantial from the solution of linear system. We also see that the nonlinear coupling introduces significant difference in the cavity fluctuation spectrum. The description, therefore, provides a potential explanation of parametric effects in terms of nonlinear dissipation phenomena associated with the nonlinear coupling. Even though the theories developed in the context of open quantum systems have proven to be powerful tools, they do not provide a satisfactory platform to be implemented on non-linear Hamiltonians. We often approximate it by linearizing over nonlinear steady state field amplitude, and therefore, the interesting effects are often overlooked. The limitation of the analytics provokes us to simulate open quantum dynamics numerically. The numerical method consists of transformation of the environmental degrees of freedom to a one-dimensional many-body chain, and the computational technique includes numerical diagonalization and renormalization process. The time-adaptive density matrix renormalisation group (t-DMRG) is known as one of the most powerful techniques for the simulation of strongly-correlated many-body quantum systems. In this thesis, along with the theoretical modeling, we implement DMRG numerical scheme for the simulation of canonical S/B model by mapping it to one-dimensional harmonic chain with nearest neighbor interactions, and use the method to investigate the dynamics of the free dissipative system. The thermalization of open quantum systems is also studied by generating minimally entangled typical thermal states (METTS) through imaginary time evolution, and real-time evolving an empty system in the presence of the thermal bath. Further, we simulate coherently driven free dissipative Kerr nonlinear system numerically using Euler's method by solving Heisenberg equation of motion and t-DMRG algorithm, and demonstrate how the numerical results are analogous to classical bistability. By comparing with analytics, we see that the DMRG numerics is analogous to the quantum-mechanical exact solution obtained by mapping the equation of motion of the density matrix of the system to a Fokker-Plank equation. The comparison between two different numerical techniques shows that the semi-classical Euler's method determines the dynamics of the system field of one among two coherent branches, whereas DMRG numerics gives the superposition of both of them. Hence, DMRG-determined time dynamics undergoes generating non-classical states. Our approach of dealing with nonlinearity represents an important contribution in the developments of technique to study the dynamical and steady-state behavior of open quantum systems, which is a fundamental aspect of quantum physics.
The Signed Particle Formulation provides a particle-based interpretation of quantum mechanics in phase space, where quantum dynamics are represented through the creation and evolution of signed particles. A central computational challenge in this framework is the evaluation of the Wigner kernel, which generally involves highly oscillatory integrals and can become computationally demanding in time-dependent simulations. This paper proposes an analytical approximation of the Wigner kernel for one-dimensional single body quantum systems by exploiting a series-based representation of the potential function. The resulting expression provides an efficient way to approximate the Wigner kernel and the associated Gamma function, which governs the particle-generation process in the Signed Particle Formulation framework. The proposed approximation is evaluated for several Gaussian-based potential profiles, including single, double, triple, and quadruple Gaussian potentials. Numerical comparisons between the approximated and directly computed Wigner kernels and Gamma functions show that the proposed method captures the main behavior of the exact quantities while significantly reducing the computational cost. These results indicate that the proposed approximation can serve as an efficient computational component for scalable Signed Particle Formulation based quantum simulations.
We employ a recently developed formalism for describing open quantum systems, to device efficient ab initio numerical techniques for the time propagation of the Wigner function. The propagator's complexity is O(NlogN), where N is the length of the array containing the Wigner function. We illustrate the developed method by propagating single particle systems undergoing decoherence and draw a faithful comparison with the classical evolution governed by both the Fokker-Planck and the Koopman-von Neumann equations. These simulations allow us to witness the emergence of the classical world by observing how the Wigner function converges to the solution of the Fokker-Planck equation with sufficient classical diffusion. As a second example we simulate for first time a numerically challenging quantum system made of two coupled particles and observe the loss of decoherence on one of the particles as a result of continuous measurements performed on the other one, therefore obtaining quantitative predictions for the loss of coherence of both particles as a function of time.
The Wigner function is a useful tool for exploring the transition between quantum and classical dynamics, as well as the behavior of quantum chaotic systems. Evolving the Wigner function for open systems has proved challenging, however; a variety of methods have been devised but suffer from being cumbersome and resource intensive. Here we present an efficient fast-Fourier method for evolving the Wigner function that has a complexity of O(NlogN) where N is the size of the array storing the Wigner function. The efficiency, stability, and simplicity of this method allows us to simulate open-system dynamics previously thought to be prohibitively expensive. As a demonstration we simulate the dynamics of both one-particle and two-particle systems under various environmental interactions. For a single particle we also compare the resulting evolution with that of the classical Fokker--Planck and Koopman--von Neumann equations and show that the environmental interactions induce the quantum-to-classical transition as expected. In the case of two interacting particles we show that an environment interacting with one of the particles leads to the loss of coherence of the other.
Understanding the collective behaviour of many-body quantum systems is an important subject in many areas of physics. With advances in ultra-cold gas experiments, the dynamics of strongly-interacting systems can now be studied in the lab. However, there is a paucity of theoretical techniques available to simulate such systems. One technique is phase-space methods, often known as the Truncated Wigner Approximation; however, its applicability in its naive form is limited. In this work, we expound on techniques to expand the regimes in which it can be effective. This involves creating a novel phase-space that is tailored to the problem at hand, and associated classical equations of motion. We show techniques for lattice systems with local finite Hilbert spaces, for fermionic systems, and for many-body localized systems. In all cases, we benchmark the accuracy of the approximation against exact results.
We derive an analytical expression of a Wigner function that approximately describes the time evolution of the one-dimensional motion of a particle in a nonharmonic potential. Our method involves two exact frame transformations, accounting for both the classical dynamics of the centroid of the initial state and the rotation and squeezing about that trajectory. Subsequently, we employ two crucial approximations, namely the constant-angle and linearized-decoherence approximations, upon which our results rely. These approximations are effective in the regime of wide potentials and small fluctuations, namely potentials that enable spatial expansions orders of magnitude larger than the one of the initial state but that remain smaller compared to the relevant dynamical length scale (e.g., the distance between turning points). Our analytical result elucidates the interplay between classical and quantum physics and the impact of decoherence during nonlinear dynamics. This analytical result is instrumental to designing, optimizing, and understanding proposals using nonlinear dynamics to generate macroscopic quantum states of massive particles.