The theory of shot noise in the space-charge-limited diffusive conduction regime

As is well known, fluctuations from a stable stationary nonequilibrium state are described by the linearized inhomogeneous Boltzmann-Langevin equation. The stationary state itself can be described by the nonlinear Boltzmann equation. The ways of its linearization sometimes seem to be not unique. We argue that there is actually a unique way to obtain a linear equation for the fluctuations. As an example, we consider an analytical theory of nonequilibrium shot noise in a diffusive conductor under the space-charge-limited regime. Our approach is compared to that in [11]. We find some difference between the present theory and the approach in [11] and discuss a possible origin of the difference. We believe that it is related to the fundamentals of the theory of fluctuation phenomena in a nonequilibrium electron gas.     

Real-time path integral approach to nonequilibrium many-body quantum systems

A real-time path-integral Monte Carlo approach is developed to study the dynamics in a many-body quantum system coupled to a phonon background until reaching a nonequilibrium stationary state. The approach is based on augmenting an exact reduced equation for the evolution of the system in the interaction picture which is amenable to an efficient path integral (worldline) Monte Carlo approach. Results obtained for a model of inelastic tunneling spectroscopy reveal the applicability of the approach to a wide range of physically important regimes, including high (classical) and low (quantum) temperatures, and weak (perturbative) and strong electron-phonon couplings.     

Quantum Generalized Measurement and Deterministic Generation of Maximum Entangled Pure State

We propose the concept of the quantum generalized projector measurcment (QGPM) for finite-dimensional quantum systems by studying the quantum generalized measurement. This research reveals a distinguished property of this quantum generalized measurement: no matter what the system state is prior to the measurement and what the result of the measurement occurs, the state of the system after the measurement can be collapsed into any specified pure state, i.e., the state of quantum system can be deterministically reduced to any specified pure state just by a single QGPM. Subsequently, QGPM can be used to deterministically generate the maximum entangled pure state for quantum systems. We give three concrete theoretic schemes of generating the maximum quantum entangled pure stazes for two 2-level particles, three 2-level particles and two 3-level particles, respectively.     

Terahertz field-induced modulations of intersubband absorptions in quantum wells

Nonlinear optical properties of intersubband electrons in a 3-level quantum well under intense terahertz field are investigated by using a density matrix approach. The results show that the terahertz fields with different frequencies cause the distinct modulations of the intersubband absorptions. The terahertz-induced sideband and Autler--Towns splitting in the absorption spectrum are obtained, respectively for the terahertz-photon energy below and close to the transition energy between the ground and first excited state.     

Quantum Generalized Measurement and Deterministic Generation of Maximum Entangled Pure State

We propose the concept of the quantum generalized projector measurement （QGPM） for finite-dimensional quantum systems by studying the quantum generalized measurement. This research reveals a distinguished property of this quantum generalized measurement： no matter what the system state is prior to the measurement and what the result of the measurement occurs, the state of the system after the measurement can be collapsed into any specified pure state, i.e., the state of quantum system can be deterministically reduced to any specified pure state just by a single QGPM. Subsequently. QGPM can be used to deterministically generate the maximum entangled pure state for quantum systems. We give three concrete theoretic schemes of generating the maximum quantum entangled pure states for two 2-Jevel particles, three 2-level particles and two 3-Jevel particles, respectively.     

Optical absorption and electromagnetically induced transparency in semiconductor quantum well driven by intense terahertz field

An approach for solving the excitonic absorption in a semiconductor quantum well driven by an intense terahertz field is presented.The formalism relies on the stationary single-photon Schro¨dinger equation in the full quantum mechanical framework.The optical absorption dynamics in both weak and strong couplings are discussed and compared.The excitonic absorption spectra show the Autler-Townes doublets for the resonance terahertz field,a replica peak for the non-resonance terahertz field,and the electromagnetically induced transparency phenomenon for modulating the decay rate of the second electron state in the weak coupling.In particular,the electromagnetically induced transparency phenomenon window range is discussed.In the strong coupling region,the multi-order energy level resonance splitting due to the strong optical field is found.There are three(non-resonance terahertz field) or four(resonance terahertz field) peaks in the optical absorption spectra.This work provides a simple and convenient approach to deal with the optical absorption in the exciton system.     

Dynamics of formation of superposition states of light in an absorbing medium

The process of simultaneous absorption of two photons in a medium in the presence of a weak one-photon absorption is considered. The medium is perturbed from outside in a two-photon parametric manner. The formation of a stationary even-parity superposition state of light in such a medium is shown to be possible in the region of small amplitudes of the state (weak perturbations of the system). This is associated with the fact that, in this region of interaction, the field spends considerably more time in the even superposition state than in the odd state. It is shown that a nonstationary superposition state of light with a large amplitude of the state (large photon numbers) can be obtained for interaction times that are longer than the most probable time of the first two-photon quantum jump of the field state and shorter than the most probable time of the first one-photon jump of the field state. The dynamics of formation of the quantum entropy of the field is studied by numerical simulation of quantum trajectories of the system. The Wigner functions of the state of the field are calculated. Analytical results are obtained for the density matrix of the stationary state of the system in the presence of a weak one-photon absorption.     

Extended Clausius Relation and Entropy for Nonequilibrium Steady States in Heat Conducting Quantum Systems

Recently, in their attempt to construct steady state thermodynamics (SST), Komatsu, Nakagawa, Sasa, and Tasaki found an extension of the Clausius relation to nonequilibrium steady states in classical stochastic processes. Here we derive a quantum mechanical version of the extended Clausius relation. We consider a small system of interest attached to large systems which play the role of heat baths. By only using the genuine quantum dynamics, we realize a heat conducting nonequilibrium steady state in the small system. We study the response of the steady state when the parameters of the system are changed abruptly, and show that the extended Clausius relation, in which “heat” is replaced by the “excess heat”, is valid when the temperature difference is small. Moreover we show that the entropy that appears in the relation is similar to von Neumann entropy but has an extra symmetrization with respect to time-reversal. We believe that the present work opens a new possibility in the study of nonequilibrium phenomena in quantum systems, and also confirms the robustness of the approach by Komatsu et al.     

Field-dependent conductivity and diffusion in a two-dimensional Lorentz gas

The conductivity and diffusion of a color-charged two-dimensional thermostatted Lorentz gas in a color field is studied by a variety of methods. In this gas, point particles move through a regular triangular array of soft scatterers, where, in the presence of a field, a nonequilibrium stationary state is reached by coupling to a Gaussian thermostat. The zero-field conductivity and diffusion coefficient are computed with equilibrium molecular dynamics dynamics from the Green-Kubo formula and the Einstein relation. Their values are consistent and approach those obtained by Machta and Zwanzig in the limit of hard (disk) scatterers. The field-dependent conductivity is obtained from its constitutive relation, from the coupling constant to the thermostat, and by using the recently derived conjugate pairing rule of Evans, Cohen, and Morriss, from the two maximal Lyapunov exponents of the Lorentz gas in the stationary state. All these methods give consistent results. Finally, elements of the field-dependent diffusion tensor have been computed. At zero field, they are consistent with the zero-field conductivity, but they vanish beyond a critical field strength, suggesting a dynamical phase transition at the critical field; the conductivity appears to remain finite, approaching a constant value for large field strengths.     

Quantum spin dynamics of mode-squeezed Luttinger liquids in two-component atomic gases

We report on the observation of many-body spin dynamics of interacting, one-dimensional (1D) ultracold bosonic gases with two spin states. By controlling the nonlinear atomic interactions close to a Feshbach resonance we are able to induce a phase diffusive many-body spin dynamics of the relative phase between the two components. We monitor this dynamical evolution by Ramsey interferometry, supplemented by a novel, many-body echo technique, which unveils the role of quantum fluctuations in 1D. We find that the time evolution of the system is well described by a Luttinger liquid initially prepared in a multimode squeezed state. Our approach allows us to probe the nonequilibrium evolution of one-dimensional many-body quantum systems.     

Dynamics of Entropy Production Rate in Two Coupled Bosonic Modes Interacting with a Thermal Reservoir

The Markovian time evolution of the entropy production rate is studied as a measure of irreversibility generated in a bipartite quantum system consisting of two coupled bosonic modes immersed in a common thermal environment. The dynamics of the system is described in the framework of the formalism of the theory of open quantum systems based on completely positive quantum dynamical semigroups, for initial two-mode squeezed thermal states, squeezed vacuum states, thermal states and coherent states. We show that the rate of the entropy production of the initial state and nonequilibrium stationary state, and the time evolution of the rate of entropy production, strongly depend on the parameters of the initial Gaussian state (squeezing parameter and average thermal photon numbers), frequencies of modes, parameters characterising the thermal environment (temperature and dissipation coefficient), and the strength of coupling between the two modes. We also provide a comparison of the behaviour of entropy production rate and Rényi-2 mutual information present in the considered system.     

Simulating nonequilibrium quantum fields with stochastic quantization techniques

We present lattice simulations of nonequilibrium quantum fields in Minkowskian space-time. Starting from a nonthermal initial state, the real-time quantum ensemble in (3 + 1) dimensions is constructed by a stochastic process in an additional (5th) "Langevin-time." For the example of a self-interacting scalar field, we show how to resolve apparent unstable Langevin dynamics and compare our quantum results with those obtained in classical field theory. Such a direct simulation method is crucial for our understanding of collision experiments of heavy nuclei or other nonequilibrium phenomena in strongly coupled quantum many-body systems.     

Self-consistent analysis of a thermally dissipative quantum field system: Korenman's model

Using the Schwinger-Keldysh path-ordering method, a favoured method for doing non-equilibrium quantum field theory, Korenman analyzed a simple model from quantum optics. We study the same model using the recently developed non-equilibrium thermo field dynamics (TFD), and make a comparison of these two methods. TFD can deal with time-dependent non-equilibrium situations caused by the initial conditions being out of equilibrium, while Korenman considered a stationary state maintained by an assumed external pumping mechanism. The explicit TFD calculation at one loop level shows the approach of the system to equilibrium which is described by the master equation derived from the self-consistent renormalization condition. Although both of the methods give practically the same dissipative coefficient in this order of approximation, we would find a larger difference between them in a higher order calculation because of the difference of unperturbative propagators. We also briefly consider the inclusion of a simple pumping mechanism for the system in TFD.     

Nonequilibrium quantum meson gas: Dimensional reduction

A nonequilibrium quantum gas of interacting relativistic effective mesons, ressembling qualitatively those produced in a heavy-ion collision, is described by a scalar quantum field in (1 + 3) -dimensional Minkowski space. For high temperature and large temporal and spatial scales, we justify that classical statistical mechanics including quantum renormalization effects describe approximately the gas: nonequilibrium dimensional reduction (NEDR). As a source of hints, we treat the gas at equilibrium in real-time formalism and obtain simplifications for high temperature and large spatial scales, thereby extending a useful equilibrium dimensional reduction known for the imaginary-time formalism. By assumption, the nonequilibrium initial state of the gas, not far from thermal equilibrium, includes interactions and inhomogeneities. We use nonequilibrium real-time generating functionals and correlators at nonzero temperature. In the NEDR regime, our arguments yield: 1) renormalized correlators simplify, 2) the perturbative series for those simplified correlators can be resummed into a new nonequilibrium generating functional, Z’ _{r, dr} , which is super-renormalizable and includes renormalization effects (large position-dependent thermal self-energies and effective couplings). Z’ _{r, dr} could enable to study nonperturbatively changes in the phase structures of the field, by proceeding from the nonequilibrium quantum regime to the NEDR one.     

Bifurcation and stability of dynamical structures at a current instability

We investigate bifurcation and stability of nonuniform current states at a voltage-controlled current instability. We consider a model which exhibits bulk negative differential conductivity due to Bragg scattering of hot electrons. The system is described by balance equations for momentum and energy densities of the carriers. These transport fields are coupled to Maxwell's equations. The uniform stationary current state is unstable against long-wavelength dielectric relaxation modes at a critical field. We find that the softening of these modes gives rise to a family of periodic travelling waves and to a solitary solution (dipole domain). We show that the periodic travelling waves are unstable, wheras the dipole domain can be stabilized by coupling the sample to a suitable external circuit, if the static impedance of the sample in the domain state is negative. The model describes therefore a discontinuous nonequilibrium transition to a large amplitude domain state.Work Supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation     

A perturbative nonequilibrium renormalization group method for dissipative quantum mechanics

We study a generic problem of dissipative quantum mechanics, a small local quantum system with discrete states coupled in an arbitrary way (i.e. not necessarily linear) to several infinitely large particle or heat reservoirs. For both bosonic or fermionic reservoirs we develop a quantum field-theoretical diagrammatic formulation in Liouville space by expanding systematically in the reservoir-system coupling and integrating out the reservoir degrees of freedom. As a result we obtain a kinetic equation for the reduced density matrix of the quantum system. Based on this formalism, we present a formally exact perturbative renormalization group (RG) method from which the kernel of this kinetic equation can be calculated. It is demonstrated how the nonequilibrium stationary state (induced by several reservoirs kept at different chemical potentials or temperatures), arbitrary observables such as the transport current, and the time evolution into the stationary state can be calculated. Most importantly, we show how RG equations for the relaxation and dephasing rates can be derived and how they cut off generically the RG flow of the vertices. The method is based on a previously derived real-time RG technique [1-4] but formulated here in Laplace space and generalized to arbitrary reservoir-system couplings. Furthermore, for fermionic reservoirs with flat density of states, we make use of a recently introduced cutoff scheme on the imaginary frequency axis [5] which has several technical advantages. Besides the formal set-up of the RG equations for generic problems of dissipative quantum mechanics, we demonstrate the method by applying it to the nonequilibrium isotropic Kondo model. We present a systematic way to solve the RG equations analytically in the weak-coupling limit and provide an outlook of the applicability to the strong-coupling case.     

Nonequilibrium quantum field theories

Combining the Feynman-Vernon influence functional formalism with the real-time formulation of finite-temperature quantum field theories we present a general approach to relativistic quantum field theories out of thermal equilibrium. We clarify the physical meaning of the additional fields encountered in the real-time formulation of quantum statistics and outline diagrammatic rules for perturbative nonequilibrium computations. We derive a generalization of Boltzmann's equation which gives a complete characterization of relativistic nonequilibrium phenomena.     

Excitons and magnetoexcitons in coupled quantum nanostructures: the role of a dirty environment

The effect of a random field caused by impurities, interface roughness and so on, on the optical properties and superfluidity of a quasi-two-dimensional system of excitons is studied. The influence of a random field on the density of the superfluid component of excitonic systems at low temperatures is investigated. For quasi-two-dimensional excitonic systems in a random field the Kosterlitz–Thouless temperature in the superfluid state is calculated. The superfluidity and Bose–Einstein condensation of indirect excitons in coupled quantum dots are studied. Magnetoexciton light absorption in the disordered quantum wells is considered. The two-particle problem of the magnetoexciton motion in the external field depending on the external magnetic field is reduced to the one-particle motion with effective magnetic mass in some effective field. The energy and optical absorption of the magnetoexciton in a single and coupled quantum dots are studied using the effective-magnetic-mass Hamiltonian. In the coherent potential approximation the coefficient of magnetoexciton optical absorption in single and coupled quantum wells is calculated. In the strong magnetic fields the exciton peak decreases with magnetic field increasing in accordance with the experimental data. The localization of direct and indirect magnetoexcitons is investigated. Received: 14 April 2000 / Accepted: 17 April 2000 / Published online: 6 September 2000     

Thermo-Quantum Diffusion

A new approach to the thermo-quantum diffusion is proposed and a nonlinear quantum Smoluchowski equation is derived, which describes classical diffusion in the field of the Bohm quantum potential. A nonlinear thermo-quantum expression for the diffusion front is obtained, being a quantum generalization of the classical Einstein law. The quantum diffusion at zero temperature is also described and a new dependence of the position dispersion on time is derived. A stochastic Bohm-Langevin equation is also proposed.     

Dielectric breakdown of Mott insulators in dynamical mean-field theory

Using nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory, we compute the time evolution of the current in a Mott insulator after a strong electric field is turned on. We observe the formation of a quasistationary state in which the current is almost time independent although the system is constantly excited. At moderately strong fields this state is stable for quite long times. The stationary current exhibits a threshold behavior as a function of the field, in which the threshold increases with the Coulomb interaction and vanishes as the metal-insulator transition is approached.