Generalized density dynamics

DAVID J. ROWE, Moyez G. Vassanji, George Rosensteel

We show that to any Lie algebra of observables in quantum mechanics there corresponds a system of densities, of which the one-body densities are just one example. These densities may correspond to a single pure state or to an ensemble of states. Like the one-body densities, they support a Hamiltonian dynamics of the time-dependent Hartree-Fock type, which can be applied, for example, to collective motions where the collective states of interest may be either more or less general than single Slater determinants. The dynamics can also be applied to the average dynamics of an ensemble of states.

F. David Peat

Guido Bacciagaluppi, Michael Dickson

We first introduce and discuss density operator interpretations of quantum theory as a special case of a more general class of interpretations, giving special attention to a version that we call the `atomic version'. We then review some crucial parts of the theory of stochastic processes (the proper context in which to discuss dynamics), and develop a general framework for specifying a dynamics for density operator interpretations. This framework admits infinitely many empirically equivalent dynamics. We give some examples, and discuss some of the properties of one of them.

K. T. Hecht

E. C. G. Sudarshan, Anil Shaji

The most general evolution of the density matrix of a quantum system with a finite-dimensional state space is by stochastic maps which take a density matrix linearly into the set of density matrices. These dynamical stochastic maps form a linear convex set that may be viewed as supermatrices. The property of Hermiticity of density matrices renders an associated supermatrix Hermitian and hence diagonalizable. The positivity of the density matrix does not make the associated supermatrix positive though. If the map itself is positive, it is called completely positive and it has a simple parametrization. This is extended to all positive (not completely positive) maps. A general dynamical map that does not preserve the norm of the density matrices it acts on can be thought of as the contraction of a norm-preserving map of an extended system. The reconstruction of such extended dynamics is also given.

Mitchel Weissbluth