Some jump processes in quantum field theory

Authors Roderich Tumulka, Hans-Otto Georgii

Publication date 16 January 2006

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0312326

Foundations, quantum information and its processing, quantum axioms, and philosophy (81P99) Quantum field theory on lattices (81T25)

Review text

The authors are stimulated by the proposal of Bell that quantum phenomena of interacting particles on a lattice with time dependent transition rates can be viewed as a jump process. They first start with jump rates induced by the Schrödinger equation: quantum theory is taken to be given by a Hilbert space \(\mathcal{H}\) of state vectors, a one-parameter group \(U_{t}\) of unitary operators on \(\mathcal{H}\) defining the time evolution \(\psi_{t}=U_{t}\psi_{0}\) of the state vector and a measurable space \((\mathcal{Q},\mathcal{F})\) of configurations describing the locations of the particles; \(\mathcal{Q}\) is connected to \(\mathcal{H}\) via a projection-valued measure (PVM) \(P(dq)\) on \(\mathcal{Q}\) acting on \(\mathcal{H}\). If we note that \(U_{t}=e^{-iHt/\hbar}\) we can easily recognize that the time evolution equation of \(\psi_{t}\) along with the above relation is just the Schrödinger equation. The authors demonstrate that these equations together with PVM give rise to a Markov process on \(\mathcal{Q}\). The final result is best summarized by the following theorem. Let \(\mathcal{H}\) be a Hilbert space, \(H\) a self-adjoint operator on \(\mathcal{H}\), \(\mathcal{Q}\) a countable set, and \(P(.)\) a PVM on \(\mathcal{Q}\) acting on \(\mathcal{H}\). For every initial state vector \(\psi_{0}\) with \(\|\psi_{0}\|=1\) satisfying \(\psi_{t}\in \text{domain}(H)\) for each \(t\in \mathbb R\), \(P(q)\psi_{t}\in\text{domain}(H)\) for each \(t\in \mathbb R,q\in\mathcal{Q}\), \( \int_{t_{1}}^{t_{2}}\,dt \sum_{q,q'\in\mathcal{Q}}| \langle\psi_{t}\mid P(q)HP(q')\psi_{t}\rangle|\), there exists a (right-continuous) Markov pure jump process \((Q_{t})_{t\in \mathbb R}\) on \(\mathcal{Q}\) with transition rates \(\sigma_{t}(q,q')\) given by \[ \sigma_{t}(q,q')=\frac{[\frac{2}{\hbar}\text{Im}\langle \psi_{t}\mid P(q)HP(q')\psi_{t}\rangle]^+} {\langle\psi_{t}P(q')\psi_{t}\rangle} \] such that \(Q_{t}\) has the distribution \(\pi_{t}=\langle\psi_{t}\mid P(.)\psi_{t}\rangle\) for every \(t\). This process is unique in distribution. The authors show how the arguments used to prove the above theorem can also be used to settle other global existence questions and in particular the global existence of Bohmian mechanics. The final section contains brief discussion on the analogue of Bohmian mechanics consisting of a smooth motion interrupted by jumps from the boundary to the interior or vice versa. For the entire collection see [Zbl 1053.82002].

Recommendations

Cited in

(19)

This page was built for publication: Some jump processes in quantum field theory

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q5718831)