Spin and the thermal equilibrium distribution of wave functions

DOI10.1007/S10955-013-0849-YMaRDI QIDQ2016532zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Viraj Pandya, Roderich Tumulka

Publication date 20 June 2014

Published in Journal of Statistical Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.1659

zbMATH Keywords

conditional wave functioncanonical ensemble in quantum theoryconditional density matrixGaussian adjusted projected (GAP) measuresscrooge measurestypicality theorems

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Statistical thermodynamics (82B30) Quantum equilibrium statistical mechanics (general) (82B10)

Abstract: Consider a quantum system $S$ weakly interacting with a very large but finite system $B$ called the heat bath, and suppose that the composite $ScupB$ is in a pure state $Psi$ with participating energies between $E$ and $E+delta$ with small $delta$. Then, it is known that for most $Psi$ the reduced density matrix of $S$ is (approximately) equal to the canonical density matrix. That is, the reduced density matrix is universal in the sense that it depends only on $S$'s Hamiltonian and the temperature but not on $B$'s Hamiltonian, on the interaction Hamiltonian, or on the details of $Psi$. It has also been pointed out that $S$ can also be attributed a random wave function $psi$ whose probability distribution is universal in the same sense. This distribution is known as the "Scrooge measure" or "Gaussian adjusted projected (GAP) measure"; we regard it as the thermal equilibrium distribution of wave functions. The relevant concept of the wave function of a subsystem is known as the "conditional wave function". In this paper, we develop analogous considerations for particles with spin. One can either use some kind of conditional wave function or, more naturally, the "conditional density matrix", which is in general different from the reduced density matrix. We ask what the thermal equilibrium distribution of the conditional density matrix is, and find the answer that for most $Psi$ the conditional density matrix is (approximately) deterministic, in fact (approximately) equal to the canonical density matrix.

Recommendations

• Universal probability distribution for the wave function of a quantum system entangled with its environment
• On the distribution of the wave function for systems in thermal equilibrium
• On the equilibrium state of a small system with random matrix coupling to its environment
• Canonical thermalization
• From Quantum Dynamics to the Canonical Distribution: General Picture and a Rigorous Example

Cites work

• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 765034 (Why is no real title available?)
• On the distribution of the wave function for systems in thermal equilibrium
• On the role of density matrices in bohmian mechanics
• Quantum equilibrium and the origin of absolute uncertainty
• Quantum thermodynamics. Emergence of thermodynamic behavior within composite quantum systems. With foreword by Fritz Haake.
• Smoothness of wave functions in thermal equilibrium
• Transformation algorithm between ladder diagram and instruction list based on AOV diagraph and binary tree
• Typicality of pure states randomly sampled according to the Gaussian adjusted projected measure
• Universal probability distribution for the wave function of a quantum system entangled with its environment

Cited in

(13)

• Thermodynamic calculation of spin scaling functions
• Universal probability distribution for the wave function of a quantum system entangled with its environment
• Spin tensor and its role in non-equilibrium thermodynamics
• On the distribution of the wave function for systems in thermal equilibrium
• On the equilibrium state of a small system with random matrix coupling to its environment
• Thermodynamics of the model of equal spin-spin interactions
• Ten reasons why a thermalized system cannot be described by a many-particle wave function
• Phase space equilibrium distribution function for spins
• Thermal equilibrium distribution in infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces
• Quantum spin probabilities at positive temperature are Hölder Gibbs probabilities
• On the statistics of quantum expectations for systems in thermal equilibrium
• Smoothness of wave functions in thermal equilibrium
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 2131249 (Why is no real title available?)

This page was built for publication: Spin and the thermal equilibrium distribution of wave functions

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q2016532)