Interacting many-particle systems with a mean-field one-body part plus a chaos generating random two-body interaction having strength lambda exhibit Poisson to Gaussian orthogonal ensemble and Breit-Wigner (BW) to Gaussian transitions in level fluctuations and strength functions with transition points marked by lambda = lambda c and lambda = lambda F, respectively; lambda F >> lambda c. For these systems a theory for the matrix elements of one-body transition operators is available, as valid in the Gaussian domain, with lambda > lambda F, in terms of orbital occupation numbers, level densities, and an integral involving a bivariate Gaussian in the initial and final energies. Here we show that, using a bivariate-t distribution, the theory extends below from the Gaussian regime to the BW regime up to lambda = lambda c. This is well tested in numerical calculations for 6 spinless fermions in 12 single-particle states.
Employing hamiltonians defined by two-body embedded Gaussian orthogonal ensemble of random matrices(EGOE(2)) plus a mean-field producing one-body part, strength functions (for states defined by the one-body part) are constructed for various values of the strength of the chaos generating two-body part. Numerical calculations for six and seven fermion systems clearly demonstrate Breit-Wigner to Gaussian transition, in the chaotic domain, in strength functions as found earlier in nuclear shell model and Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model calculations.
There is a newly emerging understanding that in the chaotic domain of isolated finite interacting many particle systems smoothed densities define the statistical description of these systems and these densities follow from embedded (two-body) random matrix ensembles and their various deformations. These ensembles predict that the smoothed form of matrix elements of a transition operator between the chaotic eigenstates weighted by the densities at the two ends (i.e. the bivariate strength density) will be a bivariate Gaussian with the bivariate correlation coefficient arising out of the non-commutability of the hamiltonian and the transition operator involved. The ensemble theory extends to systems with a mean-field and a chaos generating two-body interaction (as in nuclei, atoms and diffusive quantum dots). These developments in many-body quantum chaos are described with special reference to one-body transition operators.
Finite interacting Fermi systems with a mean-field and a chaos generating two-body interaction are modeled by one plus two-body embedded Gaussian orthogonal ensemble of random matrices with spin degree of freedom [called EGOE(1+2)-s]. Numerical calculations are used to demonstrate that, as lambda , the strength of the interaction (measured in the units of the average spacing of the single-particle levels defining the mean-field), increases, generically there is Poisson to GOE transition in level fluctuations, Breit-Wigner to Gaussian transition in strength functions (also called local density of states) and also a duality region where information entropy will be the same in both the mean-field and interaction defined basis. Spin dependence of the transition points lambda_{c} , lambdaF, and lambdad , respectively, is described using the propagator for the spectral variances and the formula for the propagator is derived. We further establish that the duality region corresponds to a region of thermalization. For this purpose we compared the single-particle entropy defined by the occupancies of the single-particle orbitals with thermodynamic entropy and information entropy for various lambda values and they are very close to each other at lambda=lambdad.
Embedded random matrix ensembles operating in nuclear shell model spaces, with nucleons occupying a finite set of single particle orbits and interacting via a two-body interaction, form the basis for statistical shell model. With sufficiently strong interaction, the level densities in shell model spaces take close to a Gaussian form and transition strength distributions close to a bivariate Gaussian form. In practice, partitioning via spherical configurations (
m~) and angular momentum
J (also isospin where appropriate) are essential. The resulting statistical spectroscopy or statistical shell model was applied successfully in the past in some studies of nuclear level densities, orbit occupancies,
β-decay matrix elements and so on. Going beyond these, recently it is recognized that embedded ensembles, in a better approximation, generate in-fact
q-normal form (
q=1 gives Gaussian and
q=0 Wigner's semi-circle) for density of eigenvalues, bivariate
q-normal form for transition strengths and conditional
q-normal form for strength functions. These then allow us to develop statistical shell model with
q-normal forms. These new developments in embedded ensembles and statistical shell model are briefly reviewed in this paper. Also described, using some examples, is the role of the
q parameter in generating statistical properties of general quantum many-particle systems.
Demonstrating the equivalence between the recent theory of Flambaum and collaborators which is based on smoothed strength functions, with the much earlier formulation due to French and collaborators which is based on embedded random matrix ensembles and smoothed transition strength densities, we derive a theory for matrix elements of one-body transition operators in the quantum chaotic domain of isolated finite interacting particle systems with a mean-field and a chaos generating two-body interaction (V). The role of the bivariate correlation coefficient (zeta) arising out of the noncommutability of V and the transition operator (in the theory of Flambaum et al., zeta=0) is tested in numerical embedded ensemble calculations with a one- plus two-body Hamiltonian generating order-chaos transitions.
Embedded random matrix ensembles are generic models for describing statistical properties of finite isolated quantum many-particle systems. For the simplest spinless fermion (or boson) systems with say
m fermions (or bosons) in
N single particle states and interacting with say
k-body interactions, we have EGUE(
k) [embedded GUE of
k-body interactions) with GUE embedding and the embedding algebra is
U(N). In this paper, using EGUE(
k) representation for a Hamiltonian that is
k-body and an independent EGUE(
t) representation for a transition operator that is
t-body and employing the embedding
U(N) algebra, finite-
N formulas for moments up to order four are derived, for the first time, for the transition strength densities (transition strengths multiplied by the density of states at the initial and final energies). In the asymptotic limit, these formulas reduce to those derived for the EGOE version and establish that in general bivariate transition strength densities take bivariate Gaussian form for isolated finite quantum systems. Extension of these results for other types of transition operators and EGUE ensembles with further symmetries are discussed.