On the distribution of the wave function for systems in thermal equilibrium

DOI10.1007/S10955-006-9210-ZzbMATH Open1119.82006arXivquant-ph/0309021OpenAlexW1985536767MaRDI QIDQ867728FDOQ867728

Authors: Sheldon Goldstein, Joel Lebowitz, Roderich Tumulka, Nino Zanghì 

Publication date: 16 February 2007

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

Abstract: For a quantum system, a density matrix rho that is not pure can arise, via averaging, from a distribution mu of its wave function, a normalized vector belonging to its Hilbert space H. While rho itself does not determine a unique mu, additional facts, such as that the system has come to thermal equilibrium, might. It is thus not unreasonable to ask, which mu, if any, corresponds to a given thermodynamic ensemble? To answer this question we construct, for any given density matrix rho, a natural measure on the unit sphere in H, denoted GAP(rho). We do this using a suitable projection of the Gaussian measure on H with covariance rho. We establish some nice properties of GAP(rho) and show that this measure arises naturally when considering macroscopic systems. In particular, we argue that it is the most appropriate choice for systems in thermal equilibrium, described by the canonical ensemble density matrix rho_beta = (1/Z) exp(- beta H). GAP(rho) may also be relevant to quantum chaos and to the stochastic evolution of open quantum systems, where distributions on H are often used.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0309021

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zbMATH Keywords

Gaussian measuresdensity matricescanonical ensemble in quantum theoryprobability measures on Hilbert spaces

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Classical equilibrium statistical mechanics (general) (82B05) Statistical thermodynamics (82B30) Quantum equilibrium statistical mechanics (general) (82B10)

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Cited In (19)

• Equilibration of isolated macroscopic quantum systems
• Product of random states and spatial (half-)wormholes
• Canonical thermalization
• Quantum fluctuation relations for ensembles of wave functions
• Universal probability distribution for the wave function of a quantum system entangled with its environment
• Typicality of pure states randomly sampled according to the Gaussian adjusted projected measure
• The Wigner function for thermal equilibrium
• Wormholes from averaging over states
• Concentration of quantum equilibration and an estimate of the recurrence time
• Elementary proof for asymptotics of large Haar-distributed unitary matrices
• Spin and the thermal equilibrium distribution of wave functions
• Thermal equilibrium distribution in infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces
• Matrix product states, random matrix theory and the principle of maximum entropy
• On the statistics of quantum expectations for systems in thermal equilibrium
• Deriving the distribution ofN-particle kinetic energies in a classical system
• Coarse-graining and symplectic non-squeezing
• Distribution of Equilibrium Free Energies in a Thermodynamic System with Broken Ergodicity
• Bohmian mechanics at space-time singularities. II: Spacelike singularities
• Many-body quantum systems. Abstracts from the workshop held September 10--15, 2023

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