This paper is concerned with the ergodic subspaces of the state spaces of isolated quantum systems. We prove a new ergodic theorem for closed quantum systems which shows that the equilibrium state of the system takes the form of a grand canonical density matrix involving a complete commuting set of observables including the Hamiltonian. The result obtained, which is derived for a generic finite-dimensional quantum system, shows that the equilibrium state arising from unitary evolution is always expressible in the canonical form, without the consideration of a system-bath decomposition.
It is well known that quantum feedback can alter the dynamics of open quantum systems dramatically. In this paper, we show that non-ergodicity may be induced through quantum feedback and resultantly create system dynamics that have lasting dependence on initial conditions. To demonstrate this, we consider an optical cavity inside an instantaneous quantum feedback loop, which can be implemented relatively easily in the laboratory. Non-ergodic quantum systems are of interest for applications in quantum information processing, quantum metrology and quantum sensing and could potentially aid the de…
It is of great current interest to establish toy models of ergodicity breaking transitions in quantum many-body systems. Here we study a model that is expected to exhibit an ergodic to nonergodic transition in the thermodynamic limit upon tuning the coupling between an ergodic quantum dot and distant particles with spin-1/2. The model is effectively zero dimensional, however, a variant of the model was proposed by De Roeck and Huveneers to describe the avalanche mechanism of ergodicity breaking transition in one-dimensional disordered spin chains. We show that exact numerical results based on …
Dual-unitary quantum circuits can be used to construct 1+1 dimensional lattice models for which dynamical correlations of local observables can be explicitly calculated. We show how to analytically construct classes of dual-unitary circuits with any desired level of (non-)ergodicity for any dimension of the local Hilbert space, and present analytical results for thermalization to an infinite-temperature Gibbs state (ergodic) and a generalized Gibbs ensemble (non-ergodic). It is shown how a tunable ergodicity-inducing perturbation can be added to a non-ergodic circuit without breaking dual-unit…
General relation is derived which expresses the fidelity of quantum dynamics, measuring the stability of time evolution to small static variation in the hamiltonian, in terms of ergodicity of an observable generating the perturbation as defined by its time correlation function. Fidelity for ergodic dynamics is predicted to decay exponentially on time-scale proportional to delta^(-2) where delta is the strength of perturbation, whereas faster, typically gaussian decay on shorter time scale proportional to delta^(-1) is predicted for integrable, or generally non-ergodic dynamics. This surprising…
Spontaneous symmetry breaking is well understood under equilibrium conditions as a consequence of the singularity of the thermodynamic limit. How a single global orientation of the order parameter dynamically emerges from an initially symmetric state during a phase transition, however, is not captured by this paradigm. Here, we present a series of symmetry arguments suggesting that singling out a global choice for the ordered state is in fact forbidden under unitary time evolution, even in the presence of an environment and infinitesimal symmetry breaking perturbrations. We thus argue that the…
Graph-theory measures capture weak ergodicity breaking on large quantum systems
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen（哥廷根大学）；Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik（马克斯·普朗克量子光学研究所）；Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST)（慕尼黑量子科学与工程中心）
We investigate the relation between the classical ergodicity and the quantum eigenstate thermalization in the fully connected Ising ferromagnets. In the case of spin-1/2, an expectation value of an observable in a single energy eigenstate coincides with the long-time average in the underlying classical dynamics, which is a consequence of the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin approximation. In the case of spin-1, the underlying classical dynamics is not necessarily ergodic. In that case, it turns out that, in the thermodynamic limit, the statistics of the expectation values of an observable in the ener…
We study the ergodic and non-ergodic behaviors of a clean Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard chain for different parameters based on the average level spacings and the generalized fractal dimensions of eigenstates by using exact diagonalization. It can be found that a transition from ergodicity to non-ergodicity phases happens when the atom-photon detuning is large, and the non-ergodic phases maybe exist in the thermodynamic limit. We also find that the non-ergodic phase violates the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis. Finally, we study the many-body multifractality of the ground state and find that th…
During the past decade, the experimental development of being able to create ever larger and heavier quantum superpositions has brought the discussion of the connection between microscopic quantum mechanics and macroscopic classical physics back to the forefront of physical research. Under equilibrium conditions this connection is in fact well understood in terms of the mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking, while the emergence of classical dynamics can be described within an ensemble averaged description in terms of decoherence. The remaining realm of individual-state quantum dynamics in…
The so-called information-thermodynamics link has been created in a series of works starting from Maxwell demon and established by the idea of transforming information into work in the though experiment of Szilard which then evolved into the vast field of research. The aim of this note is firstly to present two new models of the Szilard engine containing arbitrary number of molecules which show irrelevance of acquiring information for work extraction. Secondly, the difference between the definition of entropy for ergodic systems and systems with ergodicity breaking constraints is emphasized. T…
This paper introduces a new formalism for quantum cellular automata (QCAs), based on evolving tensor products of qubits using local unitary operators. It subsequently uses this formalism to analyze and validate several conjectures, stemming from a formal analogy between quantum computational complexity theory and classical thermodynamics, that have arisen recently in the context of black hole physics. In particular, the apparent resonance and thermalization effects present within such QCAs are investigated, and it is demonstrated that the expected exponential relationships between the quantum …
Positivity bounds from thermal field theory entropy
Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, UCAS（杭州高等研究院，中国科学院大学）；Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院理论物理研究所）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS)（中国科学院大学）
Universality and weak-ergodicity breaking in quantum quenches
Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems（马克斯·普朗克复杂系统物理研究所）；Institut für Theoretische Physik, ETH Zürich（苏黎世联邦理工学院理论物理研究所）；CNR-INO（意大利国家研究委员会光电研究所）
The von Neumann entropy is a key quantity in quantum information theory and, roughly speaking, quantifies the amount of quantum information contained in a state when many identical and independent i.i.d. copies of the state are available, in a regime that is often referred to as being asymptotic. In this work, we provide a new operational characterization of the von Neumann entropy which neither requires an i.i.d. limit nor any explicit randomness. We do so by showing that the von Neumann entropy fully characterizes single-shot state transitions in unitary quantum mechanics, as long as one has…
It is proved that the quantization of the Volkovyski-Sinai model of ideal gas (in the Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics) enjoys at the thermodynamical limit the properties of mixing and ergodicity with respect to the quantum canonical Gibbs state. Plus, the average over the quantum state of a pseudo-differential operator is exactly the average over the classical canonical measure of its Weyl symbol.
We study the roles of the dynamical high order perturbation and statistically non-linear infrared fluctuation/correlation in the virial equation of state for the Fermi gas in the unitary limit. Incorporating the quantum level crossing rearrangement effects, the spontaneously generated entropy departing from the mean-field theory formalism leads to concise thermodynamical expressions. The dimensionless virial coefficients with complex non-local correlations are calculated up to the fourth order for the first time. The virial coefficients of unitary Fermi gas are found to be proportional to thos…
It was first suggested by David Z. Albert that the existence of a real, physical non-unitary process (i.e., "collapse") at the quantum level would yield a complete explanation for the Second Law of Thermodynamics (i.e., the increase in entropy over time). The contribution of such a process would be to provide a physical basis for the ontological indeterminacy needed to derive the irreversible Second Law against a backdrop of otherwise reversible, deterministic physical laws. An alternative understanding of the source of this possible quantum "collapse" or non-unitarity is presented herein, in …
Equilibrium statistical mechanics rests on the assumption of ergodic dynamics of a system modulo the conservation laws of local observables: extremization of entropy immediately gives Gibbs' ensemble (GE) for energy conserving systems and a generalized version of it (GGE) when the number of local conserved quantities (LCQ) is more than one. Through the last decade, statistical mechanics has been extended to describe the late-time behaviour of periodically driven (Floquet) quantum matter starting from a generic state. The structure built on the fundamental assumptions of ergodicity and identifi…
