Based on the general theory of the non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, we have discussed the influences of waves on the relaxation processes in macroscopic systems, especially. about the non-exponential asymptotic behaviour of the correlation functions.Because, how to select the representation is important for discussing the dissipative processes in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, it is desirable to start from the elementary excitation representation. Using the Basic idea of C* algebra theory, we have developed a method for operator expansion, and employed it to express the flow operators in second quantized elementary excitation representation. Taking the residual interaction between the elementary excitations as perturbation in the calculation of the resolvent of the Liouville operator, and using the method of projection operator, a general expression of the non-exponential decaying part of the correlation functions have been obtained.By analysing the procedure of treating the elementary excitation spectrum, we devided the residual interaction into two parts. For pure dissipative mode, taking into account the linear interaction, the main terms of the non-exponential decaying part(t(-d/2) term) were obtained. Detailed analysis shows that, the non-linear interaction (mode-mode coupling) is very small, and leads to a relatively faster decaying process (t(-d) or so), hence it can be neglected.This article emphasizes that, for the wave processes, the local fluctuation correlation, the particle self-correlation and the transport processes are different in nature. Their relative magnitudes (relative to the corresponding quasi-particle parts) may also be quite different.With these general results, we have analysed briefly the relaxation processes in liquid, and made some discussion about the so called mode-mode coupling theory.
Based on the general theory of the non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, we have discussed the influences of waves on the relaxation processes in macroscopic systems, especially. about the non-exponential asymptotic behaviour of the correlation functions.Because, how to select the representation is important for discussing the dissipative processes in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, it is desirable to start from the elementary excitation representation. Using the Basic idea of C* algebra theory, we have developed a method for operator expansion, and employed it to express the flow operators in second quantized elementary excitation representation. Taking the residual interaction between the elementary excitations as perturbation in the calculation of the resolvent of the Liouville operator, and using the method of projection operator, a general expression of the non-exponential decaying part of the correlation functions have been obtained.By analysing the procedure of treating the elementary excitation spectrum, we devided the residual interaction into two parts. For pure dissipative mode, taking into account the linear interaction, the main terms of the non-exponential decaying part(t(-d/2) term) were obtained. Detailed analysis shows that, the non-linear interaction (mode-mode coupling) is very small, and leads to a relatively faster decaying process (t(-d) or so), hence it can be neglected.This article emphasizes that, for the wave processes, the local fluctuation correlation, the particle self-correlation and the transport processes are different in nature. Their relative magnitudes (relative to the corresponding quasi-particle parts) may also be quite different.With these general results, we have analysed briefly the relaxation processes in liquid, and made some discussion about the so called mode-mode coupling theory.
We have given in two previous chapters a first introduction to non-equilibrium phenomena. The present chapter is devoted to a presentation of more general approaches, in which time dependence will be made explicit, whereas in practice we had to limit ourselves to stationary situations in Chapters 6 and 8. In the first part of the chapter, we examine the relaxation toward equilibrium of a system that has been brought out of equilibrium by an external perturbation. The main result is that, for small deviations from equilibrium, this relaxation is described by equilibrium time correlation functions, called Kubo (or relaxation) functions: this result is also known as ‘Onsager's regression law’. The Kubo functions turn out to be basic objects of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. First they allow one to compute the dynamical susceptibilities, which describe the response of the system to an external time dependent perturbation: the dynamical susceptibilities are, within a multiplicative constant, the time derivatives of Kubo functions. A second crucial property is that transport coefficients can be expressed in terms of time integrals of Kubo functions. As we limit ourselves to small deviations from equilibrium, our theory is restricted to a linear approximation and is known as linear response theory . The classical version of linear reponse is somewhat simpler than the quantum one, and will be described first in Section 9.1. We shall turn to the quantum theory in Section 9.2, where one of our main results will be the proof of the fluctuationdissipation theorem.
In the past few years, the exponential expansion analysis of time autocorrelation functions has provided profound insight into the leading microscopic processes driving the atomic-scale dynamics and has made it possible to highlight the presence and the role of various relaxation channels through which the fundamental correlation functions decay with time. Here we apply this method to the determination of the full time dependence of a correlation function c(t) in a quantum system at nonzero temperature, by making explicit its relationship with its Kubo transform c_{K}(t), which in some cases can be approximately computed with the presently available quantum simulation techniques. We obtain an exact expression for c(t) in terms of the exponential modes that describe the time behavior of c_{K}(t). The relative importance of the various modes in determining the overall shape of c(t) can then be studied in detail. This work extends to the full time domain the results of a previous paper [Guarini et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 135301 (2019)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.123.135301], in which we employed the same method to calculate the zero time value of the velocity autocorrelation function, to obtain a microscopic description of the quantum mean kinetic energy in a fluid. In particular, we show that the decay constants and the frequencies of the dominant microscopic modes of c(t) are the same as those of c_{K}(t), but the dynamics of the quantum system also contains an additional term decaying on a time scale determined solely by temperature of the system.
The theory of statistical mechanics provides a powerful conceptual framework within which the relevant (macroscopic) features of systems at equilibrium can be described. As there is currently no equivalent capable of encompassing the much richer class of non-equilibrium phenomena, research in this direction proceeds mainly on an instance-by-instance basis. The aim of this Thesis is to describe in some detail three such attempts, which involve different dynamical aspects of classical and quantum systems. As summarised below, each of the last three Chapters of this document delves into one of these different topics, while Chapter 2 provides a brief introduction on the study of non-equilibrium dynamics. In Chapter 3 we investigate the purely relaxational dynamics of classical critical ferromagnetic systems in the proximity of surfaces, paying particular attention to the effects that the latter induce on the early stages of the evolution following an abrupt change in the temperature of the sample. When the latter ends close enough to the critical value which separates the paramagnetic from the ferromagnetic phase, it effectively introduces a temporal boundary which can be treated as if it were a surface. Within this picture, we highlight the emergence of novel effects near the effective edge formed by the intersection of the two spatial and temporal boundaries. Our findings are apparently in disagreement with previous predictions which were based on the assumption that the presence of such an edge would not affect the scaling behaviour of observables; in order to explain this discrepancy, we propose an alternative for the original power-counting argument which, at least, correctly predicts the emergence of novel field-theoretical divergences in our one-loop calculations. We show that said singularities are associated with the scaling at the edge. Moreover, by encoding our findings in a boundary renormalisation group framework, we argue that the new predicted behaviour represents a universal feature associated to the short-distance expansion of the order parameter of the transition near the edge; we also calculate explicitly its anomalous dimension at the first-order in a dimensional expansion. As a qualitative feature, this anomalous dimension depends on the type of phase transition occurring at the surface. We exploit this fact in order to provide numerical support to our predictions via Monte Carlo simulations of the dynamical behaviour of a three-dimensional Ising model. The main results reported in Chap. 3 have appeared in Ref. [1]. In Chapter 4 we revisit the Euclidean mapping to imaginary times which has been recently proposed [2, 3] as an alternative for approaching the problem of quantum dynamics following a quench. This is expected to allow one to reformulate the original problem as a static one confined in a film geometry. We show that this interpretation actually holds only if the initial state of the dynamics is pure. Statistical mixtures, instead, intertwine the effects due to the two boundaries, which therefore cannot be regarded as being independent. We emphasize that, although the aforementioned reinterpretation as a confined static problem fails, one is still able, in principle, to write down and solve the corresponding equations. We also discuss in some detail the relation between this approach and the real-time field-theoretical one which makes use of the two-time Keldysh contour. For this purpose, we study the analytical structure of relevant observables — such as correlation functions — in the complex plane of times, identifying a subdivision of this domain into several sectors which depend on the ordering of the imaginary parts of the involved time coordinates. Within each of these subdomains, the analytic continuation to the real axis provides in principle a different result. This feature allows one to reconstruct from the Euclidean formalism all possible non-time-ordered functions, which in particular include all those which can be calculated via the Keldysh two-time formalism. Moreover, we give a prescription on how to retrieve response functions, discussing some simple examples and rationalising some recent numerical data obtained for one of these observables in a one-dimensional quantum Ising chain [4]. We also highlight the emergence of a light-cone effect fairly similar to the one previously found for correlation functions [2], which therefore provides further confirmation to the fact that information travels across the system in the form of the entanglement of quasi-particles produced by the quenching procedure. We have reported part of this analysis in Ref. [5]. Chapter 5 presents part of our recent work on effective relaxation in quantum systems following a quench and on the observed prethermalisation. We analyse the effects caused by the introduction of a long-range integrability-breaking interaction in the early stages of the dynamics of an otherwise integrable quantum spin chain following a quench in the magnetic field. By employing a suitable transformation, we redefine the theory in terms of a fully-connected model of hard-core bosons, which allows us to exploit the (generically) low density of excitations for rendering our model exactly solvable (in a numerical sense, i.e., by numerically diagonalising an exact matrix). We verify that, indeed, as long as the parameters of the quench are not too close to the critical point, the low-density approximation captures the dynamical features of the elementary operators, highlighting the appearance of marked plateaux in their dynamics, which we reinterpret as the emergence of a prethermal regime in the original model. As expected, the latter behaviour is reflected also on extensive observables which can be constructed as appropriate combinations of the mode populations. For these quantities, the typical approach to the quasi-stationary value is algebraic with exponent a ≈ 3, independently of the size of the system, the strength of the interaction and the amplitude of the magnetic field (as long as it is kept far from the critical point). The plateaux mentioned above last until a recurrence time — which can be approximately identified with tR ≈ N/2 for single modes and t′R ≈ N/4 for extensive quantities — after which quantum oscillations due to the finite size of the chain reappear. Our procedure allows us to shed some light over prethermal features without having to considerably limit the size of the system, which we can choose to be quite large, as we discuss in Ref. [6].
This is the first of a series of papers dealing with many-particle systems from a unified, nonperturbative point of view. It contains derivations and discussions of various field-theoretical techniques which will be applied in subsequent papers. In a short introduction the general method of approach is summarized, and its relationship to other field-theoretic problems indicated. In the second section the macroscopic properties of the spectra of many-particle systems are described. Asymptotic evaluations are performed which characterize these macroscopic features in terms of intensive parameters, and the relationship of these parameters to thermodynamics is discussed. The special characteristics of the ground state are shown to follow as a limiting case of the asymptotic evaluations. The third section is devoted to the time-dependent field correlation functions, or Green's functions, which describe the microscopic behavior of a multiparticle system. These functions are defined, and related to intensive macroscopic variables when the energy and number of particles are large. Spectral representations and other properties of various one-particle Green's functions are derived. In the fourth section the treatment of non-equilibrium processes is considered. As a particular example, the electromagnetic properties of a system are expressed in terms of the special two-particle Green's function which describes current correlation. The discussion yields specifically a fluctuation-dissipation theorem, a sum rule for conductivity, and certain dispersion relations. The fifth section deals with the differential equations which determine the Green's functions. The boundary conditions that characterize the Green's function equations are exhibited without reference to adiabatic decoupling. A method for solving the equations approximately, by treating the correlations among successively larger numbers of particles, is considered. The first approximation in this sequence is shown to yield a generalized Hartree-like equation. A related, but rigorous, identity for the single-particle Green's function is then derived. A second approximation, which takes certain two-particle correlations into account, is shown to produce various additional effects: The interaction between particles is altered in a manner characterized by the intensive macroscopic parameters, and the modification and spread of the energy-momentum relation come into play. In the final section compact formal expressions for the Green's functions and other physical quantities are derived. Alternative equations and systematic approximations for the Green's functions are obtained.
Abstract It is shown that the relevant part of an equilibrium two-time correlation function of operators related to a subsystem of S < N particles, selected from the whole system of N ≫ 1 quantum particles, obeys the exact completely closed (homogeneous) evolution equation. This equation differs from the conventional Nakajima–Zwanzig equation by the absence of the undesirable inhomogeneous term comprising all interparticle correlations at the initial time moment. The equation defines the subdynamics in a subspace of S selected particles and is obtained without any use of approximation like the Boltzmann ‘molecular chaos’, factorized initial state or Bogoliubov’s principle of weakening of initial correlations. In the second order in a small inter-particle interaction, this equation reduces to the Markovian evolution equation, which for a one-particle correlation function ( S = 1) takes the form of the linear generalized quantum Boltzmann-like equation for a relevant part of a correlation function (one particle momentum distribution function) with the additional terms conditioned by initial correlations taken into account. This equation makes it possible to obtain the solution for the corresponding one-particle correlation function, which is valid for all timescales and reveals the influence of initial correlations on the evolution in time process. On a large timescale t ≫ t cor ∼ ℏ / k B T (decoherence time), the initial correlations cease to influence the damping process and the evolution enters a kinetic stage. However, the factor related to initial correlations survives on the large timescale, and can contribute to the kinetic coefficients.
Quantum diffusion equations with time-dependent transport coefficients are derived from generalized non-Markovian Langevin equations. Generalized fluctuation-dissipation relations and analytical formulas for calculating friction and diffusion coefficients in nuclear processes are obtained. The asymptotics of the transport coefficients and of the correlation functions are investigated. The problem of correlation decay in quantum dissipative systems is studied. A comparative analysis of diffusion coefficients for the harmonic and inverted oscillators is performed. The role of quantum statistical effects during passage through a parabolic potential barrier is investigated. Sets of diffusion coefficient assuring the purity of states at any time instant are found in cases of non-Markovian dynamics. The influence of different sets of transport coefficients on the rate of decay from a metastable state is studied in the framework of the master equation for reduced density matrices describing open quantum systems. The approach developed is applied to investigation of fission processes and the processes of projectile-nuclei capture by target nuclei for bombarding energies in the vicinity of the Coulomb barrier. The influence of dissipation and fluctuation on these processes is taken into account in a self-consistent way. The evaporation residue cross sections for asymmetric fusion reactions are calculated from the derived capture probabilities averaged over all orientations of the deformed projectile and target nuclei.