A Lyapunov operator is a self-adjoint quantum observable whose expectation value varies monotonically as time increases and may serve as a marker for the flow of time in a quantum system. In this paper it is shown that the existence of a certain type of Lyapunov operator leads to representations of the quantum dynamics, termed transition representations, in which an evolving quantum state ψ(t) is decomposed into a sum ψ(t) = ψb(t) + ψf(t) of a backward asymptotic component and a forward asymptotic component such that the evolution process is represented as a transition from ψb(t) to ψf(t). When applied to the evolution of scattering resonances, such transition representations separate the process of decay of a scattering resonance from the evolution of outgoing waves corresponding to the probability “released” by the resonance and carried away to spatial infinity. This separation property clearly exhibits the spatial probability distribution profile of a resonance. Moreover, it leads to the definition of exact resonance states as elements of the physical Hilbert space corresponding to the scattering problem. These resonance states evolve naturally according to a semigroup law of evolution.
A Lyapunov operator is a self-adjoint quantum observable whose expectation value varies monotonically as time increases and may serve as a marker for the flow of time in a quantum system. In this paper it is shown that the existence of a certain type of Lyapunov operator leads to representations of the quantum dynamics, termed transition representations, in which an evolving quantum state ψ(t) is decomposed into a sum ψ(t) = ψb(t) + ψf(t) of a backward asymptotic component and a forward asymptotic component such that the evolution process is represented as a transition from ψb(t) to ψf(t). When applied to the evolution of scattering resonances, such transition representations separate the process of decay of a scattering resonance from the evolution of outgoing waves corresponding to the probability “released” by the resonance and carried away to spatial infinity. This separation property clearly exhibits the spatial probability distribution profile of a resonance. Moreover, it leads to the definition of exact resonance states as elements of the physical Hilbert space corresponding to the scattering problem. These resonance states evolve naturally according to a semigroup law of evolution.
In nonrelativistic quantum mechanics time enters as a parameter in the Schrödinger equation. However, there are various situations where the need arises to view time as a dynamical variable. In this paper we consider the dynamical role of time through the construction of a Lyapunov variable—i.e., a self-adjoint quantum observable whose expectation value varies monotonically as time increases. It is shown, in a constructive way, that a certain class of models admits a Lyapunov variable and that the existence of a Lyapunov variable implies the existence of a transformation mapping the original quantum mechanical problem to an equivalent irreversible representation. In addition, it is proven that in the irreversible representation there exists a natural time ordering observable splitting the Hilbert space at each t>0 into past and future subspaces.
Basic notions and theWigner–Weisskopf theory Although the notions of bound states, scattering and quantum transitions are well defined in the quantum theory, the description of an unstable system, involved in the process of decay, has remained an outstanding issue for many years. The problem is fundamental, since it concerns the nature of irreversible processes, one of the most important issues in statistical mechanics and the theme that is central to this book. The theory of decay is intimately connected with scattering theory and necessarily contains mathematical ideas and methods. We shall try to explain these points carefully as we get to them. We treat elsewhere in the book the ideas of Boltzmann, Van Hove and Prigogine on irreversible phenomena. The tools that are developed there are basically approximate, although very useful. One can argue that the basic rigorous characteristic of an irreversible process is that, as represented in terms of the evolution of a state in the Hilbert space of the quantum theory, it must be a semigroup. This type of evolution, resulting in an operation Z ( t ) on a state ψ , should satisfy the property Z ( t 2 ) Z ( t 1 ) = Z ( t 1 + t 2 ). (17.1) The argument is as follows. If the system evolves in time t 1 and is stopped, then evolves further at time t 2 , since the process has no memory, the total evolution should be as if the system evolved from the initial state to a state at t 1 + t 2 independently of the fact that it was done in two stages (Piron, 1976). Since the process is irreversible, the operator Z ( t ) may have no inverse. Such an evolution is called a semigroup . As we shall see, it is not possible to obtain such an evolution law in the framework of the standard quantum theory (Horwitz et al. , 1971), but recently much work has been done, and methods have been developed, based on ideas of Sz.-Nagy and Foias (1976), such as the theory of Lax and Phillips (1967) and its extension to the quantum theory (Strauss et al. , 2000) in which semigroup evolution can be achieved.
Given a Hamiltonian H on a Hilbert space H it is shown that, under the assumption that σ(H)=σac(H)=R+, there exist unique positive operators TF and TB registering the Schrödinger time evolution generated by H in the forward (future) direction and backward (past) direction respectively. These operators may be considered as time observables for the quantum evolution. Moreover, it is shown that the same operators may serve as time observables in the construction of quantum stochastic differential equations and quantum stochastic processes in the framework of the Hudson-Parthasarathy quantum stochastic calculus. The basic mechanism enabling for the definition of the time observables originates from the recently developed semigroup decomposition formalism used in the description of the time evolution of resonances in quantum mechanical scattering problems.
This chapter shows how scattering problems are formulated in the framework of path integrals. In quantum mechanics, the state of an isolated system evolves under the action of a unitary operator, as a consequence of the conservation of probabilities and, thus, of the norm of vectors in Hilbert space. Quantum evolution (that is, in real time) is introduced, after which a path integral representation of the scattering matrix is constructed. From this S matrix, the standard perturbative expansion in powers of the potential is recovered. Even the evolution of a free quantum particle is slightly non-trivial; in general, one observes a spreading of wave packets. Scattering is then characterized by the asymptotic deviations at infinite time from this free evolution and this leads to the definition of a scattering or S-matrix. An S-matrix is defined in the example of bosons and fermions. Various other semi-classical approximation schemes are then discussed.
We introduce a dynamical evolution operator for dealing with unstable physical process, such as scattering resonances, photon emission, decoherence and particle decay. With that aim, we use the formalism of rigged Hilbert space and represent the time evolution of quantum observables in the Heisenberg picture, in such a way that time evolution is nonunitary. This allows to describe observables that are initially noncommutative, but become commutative after time evolution. In other words, a non-abelian algebra of relevant observables becomes abelian when times goes to infinity. We finally present some relevant examples.
It has been shown by Flesia and Piron that the scattering theory of Lax and Phillips, developed primarily for the treatment of hyperbolic systems (e.g., classical scattering of electromagnetic waves on a finite target), can be applied to the quantum theory. In order to construct the correspondence, the continuously infinite family of (isomorphic) Hilbert spaces associated with each value of the time (are taken to be a direct integral representation (with a choice of measure) of a larger Hilbert space which includes the variable t in its measure space. We show that this theory, for which the evolution contracted to the subspace orthogonal to the incoming and outgoing subspaces is a contractive semigroup, provides a natural description of the irreversible motion of an unstable quantum system