Correlated Density Matrices in Finite-Temperature Quantum Field Theory

Andreas Klümper, Dominic Nawrath, Junji Suzuki

We derive algebraic formulae for the density matrices of finite segments of the integrable s u (2) isotropic spin-1 chain in the thermodynamic limit. We give explicit results for the 2- and 3-site cases for arbitrary temperature T and zero field. In the zero-temperature limit the correlation functions are given in elementary form in terms of Riemann's zeta function at even integer arguments.

Alfred Wehrl

Suzanne Lanéry

Instead of formulating the states of a Quantum Field Theory (QFT) as density matrices over a single large Hilbert space, it has been proposed by Kijowski [Kijowski, 1977] to construct them as consistent families of partial density matrices, the latter being defined over small 'building block' Hilbert spaces. In this picture, each small Hilbert space can be physically interpreted as extracting from the full theory specific degrees of freedom. This allows to reduce the quantization of a classical field theory to the quantization of finite-dimensional sub-systems, thus sidestepping some of the common ambiguities (specifically, the issues revolving around the choice of a 'vacuum state'), while obtaining robust and well-controlled quantum states spaces. The present letter provides a self-contained introduction to this formalism, detailing its motivations as well as its relations to other approaches to QFT (such as conventional Fock-like Hilbert spaces, path-integral quantization, and the algebraic formulation). At the same time, it can serve as a reading guide to the series of more in-depth articles [arXiv:1411.3589, arXiv:1411.3590, arXiv:1411.3591, arXiv:1510.01926].

Naoto Nagaosa

Herman E Boos, Frank Göhmann, Andreas Klümper +1 more

We present a conjecture for the density matrix of a finite segment of the XXZ chain coupled to a heat bath and to a constant longitudinal magnetic field. It states that the inhomogeneous density matrix, conceived as a map which associates with every local operator its thermal expectation value, can be written as the trace of the exponential of an operator constructed from weighted traces of the elements of certain monodromy matrices related to and only two transcendental functions pertaining to the one-point function and the neighbour correlators, respectively. Our conjecture implies that all static correlation functions of the XXZ chain are polynomials in these two functions and their derivatives with coefficients of purely algebraic origin.

Naoto Nagaosa