Nonequilibrium steady state in open quantum systems: Influence action,stochastic equation and power balance

The existence and uniqueness of a steady state for nonequilibrium systems (NESS) is a fundamental subject and a main theme of research in statistical mechanics for decades. For Gaussian systems, such as a chain of classical harmonic oscillators connected at each end to a heat bath, and for classical anharmonic oscillators under specified conditions, definitive answers exist in the form of proven theorems. Answering this question for quantum many-body systems poses a challenge for the present. In this work we address this issue by deriving the stochastic equations for the reduced system with self-consistent backaction from the two baths, calculating the energy flow from one bath to the chain to the other bath, and exhibiting a power balance relation in the total (chain + baths) system which testifies to the existence of a NESS in this system at late times. Its insensitivity to the initial conditions of the chain corroborates to its uniqueness. The functional method we adopt here entails the use of the influence functional, the coarse-grained and stochastic effective actions, from which one can derive the stochastic equations and calculate the average values of physical variables in open quantum systems. This involves both taking the expectation values of quantum operators of the system and the distributional averages of stochastic variables stemming from the coarse-grained environment. This method though formal in appearance is compact and complete. It can also easily accommodate perturbative techniques and diagrammatic methods from field theory. Taken all together it provides a solid platform for carrying out systematic investigations into the nonequilibrium dynamics of open quantum systems and quantum thermodynamics.     

Entanglement renormalization

We propose a real-space renormalization group (RG) transformation for quantum systems on a D-dimensional lattice. The transformation partially disentangles a block of sites before coarse-graining it into an effective site. Numerical simulations with the ground state of a 1D lattice at criticality show that the resulting coarse-grained sites require a Hilbert space dimension that does not grow with successive RG transformations. As a result we can address, in a quasi-exact way, tens of thousands of quantum spins with a computational effort that scales logarithmically in the system's size. The calculations unveil that ground state entanglement in extended quantum systems is organized in layers corresponding to different length scales. At a quantum critical point, each relevant length scale makes an equivalent contribution to the entanglement of a block.     

Conditions for quantum violation of macroscopic realism

Why do we not experience a violation of macroscopic realism in everyday life. Normally, no violation can be seen either because of decoherence or the restriction of coarse-grained measurements, transforming the time evolution of any quantum state into a classical time evolution of a statistical mixture. We find the sufficient condition for these classical evolutions for spin systems under coarse-grained measurements. However, there exist "nonclassical" Hamiltonians whose time evolution cannot be understood classically, although at every instant of time the quantum state appears as a classical mixture. We suggest that such Hamiltonians are unlikely to be realized in nature because of their high computational complexity.     

Coarse-grained probabilistic automata mimicking chaotic systems

Discretization of phase space usually nullifies chaos in dynamical systems. We show that if randomness is associated with discretization dynamical chaos may survive and be indistinguishable from that of the original chaotic system, when an entropic, coarse-grained analysis is performed. Relevance of this phenomenon to the problem of quantum chaos is discussed.     

An efficient coarse-grained approach for the electron transport through large molecular systems under dephasing environment

Dephasing effects in electron transport in molecular systems connected between contacts average out the quantum characteristics of the system, forming a bridge to the classical behavior as the size of the system increases. For the evaluation of the conductance of the molecular systems which have sizes within this boundary domain, it is necessary to include these dephasing effects. These effects can be calculated by using the D’Amato-Pastawski model. However, this method is computationally demanding for large molecular systems since transmission functions for all pairs of atomic orbitals need to be calculated. To overcome this difficulty, we develop an efficient coarse-grained model for the calculation of conductance of molecular junctions including decoherence. By analyzing the relationship between chemical potential and inter-molecular coupling, we find that the chemical potential drops stepwise in the systems with weaker inter-unit coupling. Using this property, an efficient coarse-grained algorithm which can reduce computational costs considerably without losing the accuracy is derived and applied to one-dimensional organic systems as a demonstration. This model can be used for the study of the orientation dependence of conductivity in various phases (amorphous, crystals, and polymers) of large molecular systems such as organic semiconducting materials.     

Quantum chaos and random matrix theory for fidelity decay in quantum computations with static imperfections

We determine the universal law for fidelity decay in quantum computations of complex dynamics in presence of internal static imperfections in a quantum computer. Our approach is based on random matrix theory applied to quantum computations in presence of imperfections. The theoretical predictions are tested and confirmed in extensive numerical simulations of a quantum algorithm for quantum chaos in the dynamical tent map with up to 18 qubits. The theory developed determines the time scales for reliable quantum computations in absence of the quantum error correction codes. These time scales are related to the Heisenberg time, the Thouless time, and the decay time given by Fermis golden rule which are well-known in the context of mesoscopic systems. The comparison is presented for static imperfection effects and random errors in quantum gates. A new convenient method for the quantum computation of the coarse-grained Wigner function is also proposed.Received: 13 December 2003, Published online: 18 March 2004PACS: 03.67.Lx Quantum computation - 05.45.Pq Numerical simulations of chaotic systems - 05.45.Mt Quantum chaos; semiclassical methods     

Manifestation of scarring in a driven system with wave chaos

We consider wave propagation in a model of a deep ocean acoustic wave guide with a periodic range dependence. It is assumed that the wave field is governed by the parabolic equation. Formally the mathematical model of the wave guide coincides with that of a quantum system with time-dependent Hamiltonian. From the analysis of Floquet modes of the wave guide it is shown that there exists a "scarring" effect similar to that observed in quantum systems. It turns out that the segments of an unstable periodic ray trajectory may be distinguished in the spatial distribution of the wave field intensity at a finite wavelength. Besides the scarring effect, it is found that the so-called "stable islands" in the phase space of ray dynamics reveal themselves in the coarse-grained Wigner functions of the Floquet modes.     

Dynamical violation of the superposition principle for open quantum systems

It is argued that the impossibility of observing coherent superpositions of certain macroscopically distinguishable quantum states is a combined effect of collective dissipation processes generated by an interaction of the N-particle system with external quantum fields and a “coarse-grained” character of real measurements. A simple model involving a quantum dynamical semigroup is discussed.     

Efficient quantum simulation of open quantum dynamics at various Hamiltonians and spectral densities

Simulation of open quantum dynamics for various Hamiltonians and spectral densities are ubiquitous for studying various quantum systems. On a quantum computer, only log₂N qubits are required for the simulation of an N-dimensional quantum system, hence simulation in a quantum computer can greatly reduce the computational complexity compared with classical methods. Recently, a quantum simulation approach was proposed for studying photosynthetic light harvesting [npj Quantum Inf. 4, 52 (2018)]. In this paper, we apply the approach to simulate the open quantum dynamics of various photosynthetic systems. We show that for Drude–Lorentz spectral density, the dimerized geometries with strong couplings within the donor and acceptor clusters respectively exhibit significantly improved efficiency. We also demonstrate that the overall energy transfer can be optimized when the energy gap between the donor and acceptor clusters matches the optimum of the spectral density. The effects of different types of baths, e.g., Ohmic, sub-Ohmic, and super-Ohmic spectral densities are also studied. The present investigations demonstrate that the proposed approach is universal for simulating the exact quantum dynamics of photosynthetic systems.     

Tomograms for open quantum systems: In(finite) dimensional optical and spin systems

Tomograms are obtained as probability distributions and are used to reconstruct a quantum state from experimentally measured values. We study the evolution of tomograms for different quantum systems, both finite and infinite dimensional. In realistic experimental conditions, quantum states are exposed to the ambient environment and hence subject to effects like decoherence and dissipation, which are dealt with here, consistently, using the formalism of open quantum systems. This is extremely relevant from the perspective of experimental implementation and issues related to state reconstruction in quantum computation and communication. These considerations are also expected to affect the quasiprobability distribution obtained from experimentally generated tomograms and nonclassicality observed from them.     

Entropic Uncertainty in Neutrino and Meson Systems

The dynamics of quantum‐memory‐assisted entropic uncertainty for the closed neutrino system in the context of two flavor oscillations and the meson system within the framework of open quantum system are investigated. It is found that the entropic uncertainty exists in close relation with the quantum correlation, and growing quantum correlation can decrease the uncertainty. The oscillatory behaviors of entropic uncertainty in neutrino system brought about by neutrino oscillating property are different from the decaying behaviors of entropic uncertainty in meson system induced by the meson decaying nature. In addition, the entropic uncertainty is always equal to its lower bound in the two subatomic systems. This study would throw light on the particle behavior characteristics of high energy physics, and may be useful to the tasks of quantum information‐processing implemented with subatomic system since the uncertainty principle plays vital role in quantum information science and technology.     

Effective microscopic theory of quantum dot superlattice solar cells

We introduce a quantum dot orbital tight-binding non-equilibrium Green’s function approach for the simulation of novel solar cell devices where both absorption and conduction are mediated by quantum dot states. By the use of basis states localized on the quantum dots, the computational real space mesh of the Green’s function is coarse-grained from atomic resolution to the quantum dot spacing, which enables the simulation of extended devices consisting of many quantum dot layers.     

Nonlinear evolution of coarse-grained quantum systems with generalized purity constraints

Constrained quantum dynamics is used to propose a nonlinear dynamical equation for pure states of a generalized coarse-grained system. The relevant constraint is given either by the generalized purity or by the generalized invariant fluctuation, and the coarse-grained pure states correspond to the generalized coherent, i.e. generalized nonentangled states. Open system model of the coarse-graining is discussed. It is shown that in this model and in the weak coupling limit the constrained dynamical equations coincide with an equation for pointer states, based on Hilbert-Schmidt distance, that was previously suggested in the context of the decoherence theory.     

Reaction kinetic model of height selection in heteroepitaxial growth of quantum dots

A reaction kinetic model is proposed for height selection of heteroepitaxially growing nanometer-thick quantum dots. The model describes the growth by a set of rate equations for the combined size and height distributions of the dots. In addition to nucleation and growth, the model includes a coarse-grained conversion rate incorporating kinetics of height changes. With suitably chosen rate coefficients the model reproduces qualitatively the experimentally observed height-selected size distributions and their evolution. The results support the view that the height selection and the form of the size distribution both result from the oscillating energy barrier for the transformation of dots of different heights, and this transformation barrier is considerably larger in magnitude than oscillations in the electronic energy due to quantum well states in the dot.     

What Is “System”: The Information-Theoretic Arguments

The problem of “what is ‘system’?” is in the very foundations of modern quantum mechanics. Here, we point out the interest in this topic in the information-theoretic context. E.g., we point out the possibility to manipulate a pair of mutually non-interacting, non-entangled systems to employ entanglement of the newly defined “(sub)systems” consisting the one and the same composite system. Given the different divisions of a composite system into “subsystems”, the Hamiltonian of the system may generate in general non-equivalent quantum computations. Redefinition of “subsystems” of a composite system may be regarded as a method for avoiding decoherence in the quantum hardware. In principle, all the notions refer to a composite system as simple as the hydrogen atom.     

Classical decays in decoherent quantum maps

The linear entropy and the Loschmidt echo have proved to be of interest recently in the context of quantum information and of the quantum to classical transitions. We study the asymptotic long-time behavior of these quantities for open quantum maps and relate the decays to the eigenvalues of a coarse-grained superoperator. In specific ranges of coarse graining, and for chaotic maps, these decay rates are given by the Ruelle-Pollicott resonances of the classical map.     

Localization in the Non-analytic Quantum Kicked Systems

Numerical investigations on non-analytic quantum kicked systems are presented. A new type of localization - power-law localization is found to be universal in the nonanalytic systems. With increasing the perturbation strength, a transition from perturbative localization to pseudo-integrable system, to dynamical localization and to complete extension is clearly demonstrated. The dependence of the localization length on perturbation is given in different parameter regimes.     

Classical projected phase space density of billiards and its relation to the quantum neumann spectrum

A comparison of classical and quantum evolution usually involves a quasiprobability distribution as a quantum analogue of the classical phase space distribution. In an alternate approach that we adopt here, the classical density is projected on to the configuration space. We show that for billiards, the eigenfunctions of the coarse-grained projected classical evolution operator are identical to a first approximation to the quantum Neumann eigenfunctions. However, even though there exists a correspondence between the respective eigenvalues, their time evolutions differ. This is demonstrated numerically for the stadium and lemon-shaped billiards.