Normal typicality and von Neumann's quantum ergodic theorem

DOI10.1098/RSPA.2009.0635MaRDI QIDQ3163464zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Christian Mastrodonato, Roderich Tumulka, Nino Zanghì, Sheldon Goldstein, Joel Lebowitz

Publication date 26 October 2010

Published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/0907.0108

zbMATH Keywords

equilibrationergodicity in quantum statistical mechanicsgeneric Hamiltonianmacro-statethermalizationtypical Hamiltonian

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Ergodic theorems, spectral theory, Markov operators (37A30) Dynamical aspects of statistical mechanics (37A60) Quantum dynamics and nonequilibrium statistical mechanics (general) (82C10)

Abstract: We discuss the content and significance of John von Neumann's quantum ergodic theorem (QET) of 1929, a strong result arising from the mere mathematical structure of quantum mechanics. The QET is a precise formulation of what we call normal typicality, i.e., the statement that, for typical large systems, every initial wave function $ps{i}_0$ from an energy shell is "normal": it evolves in such a way that $|ps{i}_t><ps{i}_t|$ is, for most $t$, macroscopically equivalent to the micro-canonical density matrix. The QET has been mostly forgotten after it was criticized as a dynamically vacuous statement in several papers in the 1950s. However, we point out that this criticism does not apply to the actual QET, a correct statement of which does not appear in these papers, but to a different (indeed weaker) statement. Furthermore, we formulate a stronger statement of normal typicality, based on the observation that the bound on the deviations from the average specified by von Neumann is unnecessarily coarse and a much tighter (and more relevant) bound actually follows from his proof.

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Cites work

• Quantum macrostates, equivalence of ensembles, and an H-theorem

Cited in

(31)

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