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A computable branching process for the Wigner quantum dynamics

Sihong Shao, Yunfeng Xiong

Published Mar 1, 2016• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

A branching process treatment for the nonlocal Wigner pseudo-differential operator and its numerical applications in quantum dynamics is proposed and analyzed. We start from the discussion on two typical truncations of the nonlocal term, i.e., the k-truncated and y-truncated models. After introducing an auxiliary function γ(x), the (truncated) Wigner equation is reformulated into the integral formulation as well as its adjoint correspondence, both of which can be regarded as the renewal-type equations and have transparent stochastic interpretation. We prove that the moment of a branching process happens to be the solution for the adjoint equation, which connects rigorously the Wigner quantum dynamics to the stochastic branching process, and thus a sound mathematical framework for the Wigner Monte Carlo methods is established. Within the framework, the branching process for the y-truncated model recovers the popular signed particle Monte Carlo method which needs a discretization of the momentum space beforehand, whereas the k-truncated branching method allows a continuous momentum sampling. More interestingly, with the help of the rigorous connection, we find that a constant auxiliary function γ(x) ≡ γ0 performs better from the point of view of both theoretical and numerical aspects. In theory, we obtain a simple but analytical calculation formula for the growth rate of particle number, i.e., e2γ0t with t being the time. In numerics, the constant auxiliary function may facilitate the random sampling from the exponential distribution and improve the accuracy. Typical numerical experiments on the Gaussian barrier scattering validate our theoretical findings, as well as demonstrate the accuracy, the efficiency and thus the computability of the Wigner branching process.

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Recent advances in dynamical low-rank approximation (DLRA) have demonstrated its effectiveness in high-dimensional simulations. However, existing DLRA algorithms still face significant challenges when handling systems that involve complex collision terms, including the pseudo-differential operator (${\rm Ψ}$) in the Wigner equation, a representative operator characterized by nonlocality. It is deserving to carry out a series of works to develop the DLRA algorithms for solving the Wigner equation. As the first step in this series of works, we propose an efficient DLRA algorithm for the Wigner equation, using a separable decomposition of the difference potential. We combine this separable assumption with two often-used truncations of ${\rm Ψ}$, namely $\mathcal{K}$-truncation and $\mathcal{Y}$-truncation, to obtain a kind of separated representation of ${\rm Ψ}$. Complexity analysis and several challenging experiments, including harmonic oscillators, Gaussian barrier scattering, electron-electron scattering, and a Helium-like system, all of which satisfy the separable assumption, confirm that the proposed DLRA algorithm has significant advantages, achieving a reduction in computational effort by one to two orders of magnitude in both runtime and memory requirements compared to the full-grid approach. It is worth noting that, even in the absence of a predetermined low-rank structure for the solution, DLRA can still serve as a numerical scheme that balances efficiency and accuracy.

math.NACross-listedarXiv:2606.24190•Jun 24, 2026
A branching process treatment for the nonlocal Wigner pseudo-differential operator and its numerical applications in quantum dynamics is proposed and analyzed. We start from the discussion on two typical truncations of the nonlocal term, i.e., the k-truncated and y-truncated models. After introducing an auxiliary function γ(x), the (truncated) Wigner equation is reformulated into the integral formulation as well as its adjoint correspondence, both of which can be regarded as the renewal-type equations and have transparent stochastic interpretation. We prove that the moment of a branching process happens to be the solution for the adjoint equation, which connects rigorously the Wigner quantum dynamics to the stochastic branching process, and thus a sound mathematical framework for the Wigner Monte Carlo methods is established. Within the framework, the branching process for the y-truncated model recovers the popular signed particle Monte Carlo method which needs a discretization of the momentum space beforehand, whereas the k-truncated branching method allows a continuous momentum sampling. More interestingly, with the help of the rigorous connection, we find that a constant auxiliary function γ(x) ≡ γ0 performs better from the point of view of both theoretical and numerical aspects. In theory, we obtain a simple but analytical calculation formula for the growth rate of particle number, i.e., e2γ0t with t being the time. In numerics, the constant auxiliary function may facilitate the random sampling from the exponential distribution and improve the accuracy. Typical numerical experiments on the Gaussian barrier scattering validate our theoretical findings, as well as demonstrate the accuracy, the efficiency and thus the computability of the Wigner branching process.
A branching random walk algorithm for many-body Wigner equations and its numerical applications for quantum dynamics in phase space are proposed and analyzed in this paper. Using an auxiliary function, the truncated Wigner equation and its adjoint form are cast into integral formulations, which can be then reformulated into renewal-type equations with probabilistic interpretations. We prove that the first moment of a branching random walk is the solution for the adjoint equation. With the help of the additional degree of freedom offered by the auxiliary function, we are able to produce a weighted-particle implementation of the branching random walk. In contrast to existing signed-particle implementations, this weighted-particle one shows a key capacity of variance reduction by increasing the constant auxiliary function and has no time discretization errors. Several canonical numerical experiments on the 2D Gaussian barrier scattering and a 4D Helium-like system validate our theoretical findings, and demonstrate the accuracy, the efficiency, and thus the computability of the proposed weighted-particle Wigner branching random walk algorithm.
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 review the truncated Wigner approximation (TWA) for spins as a computationally inexpensive numerical approximation method to describe interacting and / or dissipative many-body spin systems. Using the Wigner-Moyal mapping from Hilbert space to a suitable phase space, the many-body density matrix is represented by a c-number distribution, the Wigner function. The gauge freedom in continuous phase space can be exploited to find positive Wigner functions for a large class of spin states, including entangled ones. Employing different sets of correspondence rules, we derive equations of motion for the Wigner function, which, applying controlled approximations, can be mapped to stochastic differential equations. This allows a computationally inexpensive simulation of expectation values. Using a phase-space analog of the quantum regression theorem also multi-time correlations and spectra can be obtained. To illustrate the potential of the method, we benchmark the TWA for spins with some exactly solvable problems of interacting, dissipative spin systems, and then discuss its application to collective processes, such as the superradiant emission of light. Extending the TWA to imaginary time furthermore provides a tool to approximately calculate thermal and ground states of spin Hamiltonians. Finally, we show that the TWA stochastic equations can equivalently be derived within a path-integral approach, provided that the operator products in the dissipator are rigorously mapped onto the curved phase space.
The truncated Wigner approximation (TWA) enables us to investigate bosonic quantum many-body dynamics, including open quantum systems described by the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) equation. In the TWA, the Weyl-Wigner transformation, a way of mapping from quantum-mechanical operators to c -numbers, of the GKSL equation leads to the Fokker–Planck equation, which we calculate by reducing it to the corresponding stochastic differential equations. However, the Fokker–Planck equation is not always reduced to the stochastic differential equations depending on details of jump operators. In this work, we clarify the condition for obtaining the stochastic differential equations from the Fokker–Planck equation and derive analytical expressions of these equations for a system with an arbitrary Hamiltonian with jump operators that do not couple different states. This result leads to remarkable simplification of the complicated calculations required in the conventional procedures of the TWA. In the course of the derivation, we formulate the GKSL equation by using the path-integral representation based on the Weyl-Wigner transformation, which gives us a clear interpretation of the relation between the TWA and quantum fluctuations and allows us to calculate the non-equal time correlation functions in the TWA. In the benchmark calculations, we numerically confirm that the relaxation dynamics of physical quantities including the non-equal time correlation functions obtained in our formulation agrees well with the exact ones in the numerically solvable models. Since our formulation is widely applicable to bosonic systems such as the Bose-Hubbard model, it facilitates studies of the open quantum many-body phenomenon.
In the standard formulation of quantum mechanics states of a system are described by wave functions or density operators . However quantum description of the system can be given in many other ways , for example, in Wigner-Moyal or Feynman formulations . All these representation are equivalent in the the sense of physical results, but the form of presentation of quantum mechanics is different as wave functions, Wigner-Liouville functions or other representations of density operators differ in essential way from each other. In this work we are dealing with Wigner and probability representation of quantum mechanics. The probability representations or tomography representation was recently proposed in terms of marginal distribution functions (MDF). MDF describing the quantum states are positive distribution functions connected with wave functions or density matrices by known integral transformation. Sign conservation of the of the MDF can be valuable in computer simulations to overcome the "sign problem". Important advantage of the probability representation is that the quantum transitions between quantum states are descried by non-negative probabilities. This work is devoted to the development of a new stochastic approaches to numerical solution of the evolution equations for Wigner-Liouviile (WL) and marginal distribution functions. To solve the WL equation we combine both molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo methods and compute traces of the dynamical operators. The results obtained for a system of electrons and random scatterers clearly demonstrate that the many-particle interaction between the electrons leads to an enhancement of the conductivity compared to the case of noninteracting electrons. To obtain evolution of MDF we developed new stochastic approach to solution of the generalized Langevin equation (GLE). GLE is derived from Kolmogorov equations for Green function of evolution equation for MDF. We discuss the basic relations and main ideas of this approach, compare obtained numerical results with results of independent finite-difference calculations for quantum oscillator and quantum particles crossing the finite well and tunneling through the Gaussian barrier.
Recent advances in dynamical low-rank approximation (DLRA) have demonstrated its effectiveness in high-dimensional simulations. However, existing DLRA algorithms still face significant challenges when handling systems that involve complex collision terms, including the pseudo-differential operator (Ψ{\rm Ψ}Ψ) in the Wigner equation, a representative operator characterized by nonlocality. It is deserving to carry out a series of works to develop the DLRA algorithms for solving the Wigner equation. As the first step in this series of works, we propose an efficient DLRA algorithm for the Wigner equation, using a separable decomposition of the difference potential. We combine this separable assumption with two often-used truncations of Ψ{\rm Ψ}Ψ, namely K\mathcal{K}K-truncation and Y\mathcal{Y}Y-truncation, to obtain a kind of separated representation of Ψ{\rm Ψ}Ψ. Complexity analysis and several challenging experiments, including harmonic oscillators, Gaussian barrier scattering, electron-electron scattering, and a Helium-like system, all of which satisfy the separable assumption, confirm that the proposed DLRA algorithm has significant advantages, achieving a reduction in computational effort by one to two orders of magnitude in both runtime and memory requirements compared to the full-grid approach. It is worth noting that, even in the absence of a predetermined low-rank structure for the solution, DLRA can still serve as a numerical scheme that balances efficiency and accuracy.