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arXiv:hep-th/9301082

Evolution of Pure States into Mixed States

Jun Liu

Published Jan 19, 1993• 5 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In the formulation of Banks, Peskin and Susskind, we show that one can construct evolution equations for the quantum mechanical density matrix $ρ$ with operators which do not commute with hamiltonian which evolve pure states into mixed states, preserve the normalization and positivity of $ρ$ and conserve energy. Furthermore, it seems to be different from a quantum mechanical system with random sources.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.hep-th/9301082

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In the formulation of Banks, Peskin and Susskind, we show that one can construct evolution equations for the quantum mechanical density matrix ρρρ with operators which do not commute with hamiltonian which evolve pure states into mixed states, preserve the normalization and positivity of ρρρ and conserve energy. Furthermore, it seems to be different from a quantum mechanical system with random sources.
We propose an extended quantum mechanical formalism that is based on a wave operator $\stackrel{^}{\ensuremath{\varrho}}$, which is related to the ordinary density matrix via $\ensuremath{\rho}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}\stackrel{^}{\ensuremath{\varrho}}{\stackrel{^}{\ensuremath{\varrho}}}^{\ifmmode\dagger\else\textdagger\fi{}}$. This formalism allows a (generalized) unitary evolution between pure and mixed states. It also preserves much of the connection between symmetries and conservation laws. The new formalism is illustrated for the case of a two-level system.
We propose a new systematic fibre bundle formulation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. The new form of the theory is equivalent to the usual one and is in harmony with the modern trends in theoretical physics and potentially admits new generalizations in different directions. In it the Hilbert space of a quantum system (from conventional quantum mechanics) is replaced with an appropriate Hilbert bundle of states and a pure state of the system is described by a lifting of paths or section along paths in this bundle. The evolution of a pure state is determined through the bundle (analog of the) Schrödinger equation. Now the dynamical variables and density operators are described via liftings of paths or morphisms along paths in suitable bundles. The mentioned quantities are connected by a number of relations derived in this work. The present fourth part of this series is devoted mainly to the fibre bundle description of mixed quantum states. We show that to the conventional density operator there corresponds a unique density lifting of paths for which the corresponding equations of motion are derived. It is also investigated the bundle description of mixed quantum states in the different pictures of motion. We calculate the curvature of the evolution transport and prove that it is curvature free iff the values of the Hamiltonian operator at different moments commute.
An argument by Banks, Susskind and Peskin (BSP), according to which violation of unitarity would violate either locality or energy-momentum conservation, is widely believed to be a strong argument against non-unitarity of Hawking radiation. We find that the whole BSP argument rests on the crucial assumption that the Hamiltonian is not highly degenerate, and point out that this assumption is not satisfied for systems with many degrees of freedom. Using Lindblad equation, we show that high degeneracy of the Hamiltonian allows local non-unitary evolution without violating energy-momentum conservation. Moreover, since energy-momentum is the source of gravity, we argue that energy-momentum is necessarily conserved for a large class of non-unitary systems with gravity. Finally, we explicitly calculate the Lindblad operators for non-unitary Hawking radiation and show that they conserve energy-momentum.
We propose a new systematic fibre bundle formulation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. The new form of the theory is equivalent to the usual one and is in harmony with the modern trends in theoretical physics and potentially admits new generalizations in different directions. In it the Hilbert space of a quantum system (from conventional quantum mechanics) is replaced with an appropriate Hilbert bundle of states and a pure state of the system is described by a lifting of paths or section along paths in this bundle. The evolution of a pure state is determined through the bundle (analog of the) Schrödinger equation. Now the dynamical variables and density operators are described via liftings of paths or morphisms along paths in suitable bundles. The mentioned quantities are connected by a number of relations derived in this work. The present fourth part of this series is devoted mainly to the fibre bundle description of mixed quantum states. We show that to the conventional density operator there corresponds a unique density lifting of paths for which the corresponding equations of motion are derived. It is also investigated the bundle description of mixed quantum states in the different pictures of motion. We calculate the curvature of the evolution transport and prove that it is curvature free iff the values of the Hamiltonian operator at different moments commute.