We compute density matrices determining equilibrium states in the thermodynamic limit for a class of quantum systems. Interaction in these systems is described as a collective electromagnetic field whose scalar potential is equal to zero.
Quantum systems of particles interacting via an effective electromagnetic potential with zero electrostatic component are considered (magnetic interaction). It is assumed that the j th component of the effective potential for n particles equals the partial derivative with respect to the coordinate of the jth particle of “magnetic potential energy” of n particles almost everywhere. The reduced density matrices for small values of the activity are computed in the thermodynamic limit for d-dimensional systems with short-range pair magnetic potentials and for one-dimensional systems with long-range pair magnetic interaction, which is an analog of the interaction of three-dimensional Chern-Simons electrodynamics (“magnetic potential energy” coincides with the one-dimensional Coulomb (electrostatic) potential energy).
We provide a description of interacting quantum fields in terms of density matrices for any occupation numbers in Fock space in a momentum basis. As a simple example, we focus on a real scalar field interacting with another real scalar field, and present a practicable formalism for directly computing the density matrix elements of the combined scalar–scalar system. For deriving the main formula, we use techniques from non-equilibrium quantum field theory like thermo-field dynamics and the Schwinger–Keldysh formalism. Our results allow for studies of particle creation/annihilation processes at finite times and other non-equilibrium processes, including those found in the theory of open quantum systems.
By using a recently proposed probabilistic approach, we determine the exact ground state of a class of matrix Hamiltonian models characterized by the fact that in the thermodynamic limit the multiplicities of the potential values assumed by the system during its evolution are distributed according to a multinomial probability density. The class includes (i) the uniformly fully connected models, namely a collection of states all connected with equal hopping coefficients and in the presence of a potential operator with arbitrary levels and degeneracies, and (ii) the random potential systems, in which the hopping operator is generic and arbitrary potential levels are assigned randomly to the states with arbitrary probabilities. For this class of models we find a universal thermodynamic limit characterized only by the levels of the potential, rescaled by the ground-state energy of the system for zero potential, and by the corresponding degeneracies (probabilities). If the degeneracy (probability) of the lowest potential level tends to zero, the ground state of the system undergoes a quantum phase transition between a normal phase and a frozen phase with zero hopping energy. In the frozen phase the ground state condenses into the subspace spanned by the states of the system associated with the lowest potential level.