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Alain Joye

Publications and source records attributed to Alain Joye.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2016

Landauer's Principle in Repeated Interaction Systems

We study Landauer's Principle for Repeated Interaction Systems (RIS) consisting of a reference quantum system $\mathcal{S}$ in contact with a structured environment $\mathcal{E}$ made of a chain of independent quantum probes; $\mathcal{S}$ interacts with each probe, for a fixed duration, in sequence. We first adapt Landauer's lower bound, which relates the energy variation of the environment $\mathcal{E}$ to a decrease of entropy of the system $\mathcal{S}$ during the evolution, to the peculiar discrete time dynamics of RIS. Then we consider RIS with a structured environment $\mathcal{E}$ displaying small variations of order $T^{-1}$ between the successive probes encountered by $\mathcal{S}$, after $n\simeq T$ interactions, in keeping with adiabatic scaling. We establish a discrete time non-unitary adiabatic theorem to approximate the reduced dynamics of $\mathcal{S}$ in this regime, in order to tackle the adiabatic limit of Landauer's bound. We find that saturation of Landauer's bound is equivalent to a detailed balance condition on the repeated interaction system, reflecting the non-equilibrium nature of the repeated interaction system dynamics. This is to be contrasted with the generic saturation of Landauer's bound known to hold for continuous time evolution of an open quantum system interacting with a single thermal reservoir in the adiabatic regime.

math-ph↗
arXiv2015

Representations of canonical commutation relations describing infinite coherent states

We investigate the infinite volume limit of quantized photon fields in multimode coherent states. We show that for states containing a continuum of coherent modes, it is mathematically and physically natural to consider their phases to be random and identically distributed. The infinite volume states give rise to Hilbert space representations of the canonical commutation relations which we construct concretely. In the case of random phases, the representations are random as well and can be expressed with the help of Itô stochastic integrals. We analyze the dynamics of the infinite state alone and the open system dynamics of small systems coupled to it. We show that under the free field dynamics, initial phase distributions are driven to the uniform distribution. We demonstrate that coherences in small quantum systems, interacting with the infinite coherent state, exhibit Gaussian time decay. The decoherence is qualitatively faster than the one caused by infinite thermal states, which is known to be exponentially rapid only. This emphasizes the classical character of coherent states.

math-ph↗
arXiv2015

Density of States for Random Contractions

We define a linear functional, the DOS functional, on spaces of holomorphic functions on the unit disk which is associated with random ergodic contraction operators on a Hilbert space, in analogy with the density of state functional for random self-adjoint operators. The DOS functional is shown to enjoy natural integral representations on the unit circle and on the unit disk. For random contractions with suitable finite volume approximations, the DOS functional is proven to be the almost sure infinite volume limit of the trace per unit volume of functions of the finite volume restrictions. Finally, in case the normalised counting measure of the spectrum of the finite volume restrictions converges in the infinite volume limit, the DOS functional is shown admit an integral representation on the disk in terms of the limiting measure, despite the discrepancy between the spectra of non normal operators and their finite volume restrictions. Moreover, the integral representation of the DOS functional on the unit circle is related to the Borel transform of the limiting measure.

math-ph↗
arXiv2015

Spectral Stability of Unitary Network Models

We review various unitary network models used in quantum computing, spectral analysis or condensed matter physics and establish relationships between them. We show that symmetric one dimensional quantum walks are universal, as are CMV matrices. We prove spectral stability and propagation properties for general asymptotically uniform models by means of unitary Mourre theory.

math-ph↗
arXiv2014

Spectral Properties of Non-Unitary Band Matrices

We consider families of random non-unitary contraction operators defined as deformations of CMV matrices which appear naturally in the study of random quantum walks on trees or lattices. We establish several deterministic and almost sure results about the location and nature of the spectrum of such non-normal operators as a function of their parameters. We relate these results to the analysis of certain random quantum walks, the dynamics of which can be studied by means of iterates of such random non-unitary contraction operators.

math-ph↗
arXiv2013

Spectral Properties of Quantum Walks on Rooted Binary Trees

We define coined Quantum Walks on the infinite rooted binary tree given by unitary operators $U(C)$ on an associated infinite dimensional Hilbert space, depending on a unitary coin matrix $C\in U(3)$, and study their spectral properties. For circulant unitary coin matrices $C$, we derive an equation for the Carathéodory function associated to the spectral measure of a cyclic vector for $U(C)$. This allows us to show that for all circulant unitary coin matrices, the spectrum of the Quantum Walk has no singular continuous component. Furthermore, for coin matrices $C$ which are orthogonal circulant matrices, we show that the spectrum of the Quantum Walk is absolutely continuous, except for four coin matrices for which the spectrum of $U(C)$ is pure point.

math-ph↗
arXiv2013

Repeated interactions in open quantum systems

Analyzing the dynamics of open quantum systems has a long history in mathematics and physics. Depending on the system at hand, basic physical phenomena that one would like to explain are, for example, convergence to equilibrium, the dynamics of quantum coherences (decoherence) and quantum correlations (entanglement), or the emergence of heat and particle fluxes in non-equilibrium situations. From the mathematical physics perspective, one of the main challenges is to derive the irreversible dynamics of the open system, starting from a unitary dynamics of the system and its environment. The repeated interactions systems considered in these notes are models of non-equilibrium quantum statistical mechanics. They are relevant in quantum optics, and more generally, serve as a relatively well treatable approximation of a more difficult quantum dynamics. In particular, the repeated interaction models allow to determine the large time (stationary) asymptotics of quantum systems out of equilibrium.

math-ph↗
arXiv2013

Spectral Transition for Random Quantum Walks on Trees

We define and analyze random quantum walks on homogeneous trees of degree $q\geq 3$. Such walks describe the discrete time evolution of a quantum particle with internal degree of freedom in $\C^q$ hopping on the neighboring sites of the tree in presence of static disorder. The one time step random unitary evolution operator of the particle depends on a unitary matrix $C\in U(q)$ which monitors the strength of the disorder. We prove for any $q$ that there exist open sets of matrices in $U(q)$ for which the random evolution has either pure point spectrum almost surely or purely absolutely continuous spectrum, thereby showing the existence of a spectral transition driven by $C\in U(q)$. For $q\in\{3,4\}$, we establish properties of the spectral diagram which provide a description of the spectral transition.

math-ph↗
arXiv2012

Dynamical Localization of Random Quantum Walks on the Lattice

This note describes recent results on the localization properties of Random Quantum Walks on the d-dimensional lattice in a regime analogous to the large disorder regime by means of the Fractional Moments Method adapted to the unitary framework.

math-ph↗
arXiv2012

Dynamical Localization for d-Dimensional Random Quantum Walks

We consider a d-dimensional random quantum walk with site-dependent random coin operators. The corresponding transition coefficients are characterized by deterministic amplitudes times independent identically distributed site-dependent random phases. When the deterministic transition amplitudes are close enough to those of a quantum walk which forbids propagation, we prove that dynamical localization holds for almost all random phases. This instance of Anderson localization implies that all quantum mechanical moments of the position operator are uniformly bounded in time and that spectral localization holds, almost surely.

math-ph↗
arXiv2011

Correlated Markov Quantum Walks

We consider the discrete time unitary dynamics given by a quantum walk on $\Z^d$ performed by a particle with internal degree of freedom, called coin state, according to the following iterated rule: a unitary update of the coin state takes place, followed by a shift on the lattice, conditioned on the coin state of the particle. We study the large time behavior of the quantum mechanical probability distribution of the position observable in $\Z^d$ for random updates of the coin states of the following form. The random sequences of unitary updates are given by a site dependent function of a Markov chain in time, with the following properties: on each site, they share the same stationnary Markovian distribution and, for each fixed time, they form a deterministic periodic pattern on the lattice. We prove a Feynman-Kac formula to express the characteristic function of the averaged distribution over the randomness at time $n$ in terms of the nth power of an operator $M$. By analyzing the spectrum of $M$, we show that this distribution posesses a drift proportional to the time and its centered counterpart displays a diffusive behavior with a diffusion matrix we compute. Moderate and large deviations principles are also proven to hold for the averaged distribution and the limit of the suitably rescaled corresponding characteristic function is shown to satisfy a diffusion equation. An example of random updates for which the analysis of the distribution can be performed without averaging is worked out. The random distribution displays a deterministic drift proportional to time and its centered counterpart gives rise to a random diffusion matrix whose law we compute. We complete the picture by presenting an uncorrelated example.

math-ph↗
arXiv2011

Random Unitary Models and their Localization Properties

This paper aims at presenting a few models of quantum dynamics whose description involves the analysis of random unitary matrices for which dynamical localization has been proven to hold. Some models come from physical approximations leading to effective descriptions of the dynamics of certain random systems that are popular in condensed matter theoretical physics, whereas others find their roots in more abstract considerations and generalizations. Although they may differ in details, the operators describing the models all have in common the following key features on which their analysis relies heavily: their dynamics is generated by unitary operators on an infinite dimensional underlying Hilbert space which have a band structure when expressed as matrices in a certain basis and the randomness of the models lies in phases of the matrix elements.

math-ph↗
arXiv2011

Random Time-Dependent Quantum Walks

We consider the discrete time unitary dynamics given by a quantum walk on the lattice $\Z^d$ performed by a quantum particle with internal degree of freedom, called coin state, according to the following iterated rule: a unitary update of the coin state takes place, followed by a shift on the lattice, conditioned on the coin state of the particle. We study the large time behavior of the quantum mechanical probability distribution of the position observable in $\Z^d$ when the sequence of unitary updates is given by an i.i.d. sequence of random matrices. When averaged over the randomness, this distribution is shown to display a drift proportional to the time and its centered counterpart is shown to display a diffusive behavior with a diffusion matrix we compute. A moderate deviation principle is also proven to hold for the averaged distribution and the limit of the suitably rescaled corresponding characteristic function is shown to satisfy a diffusion equation. A generalization to unitary updates distributed according to a Markov process is also provided. An example of i.i.d. random updates for which the analysis of the distribution can be performed without averaging is worked out. The distribution also displays a deterministic drift proportional to time and its centered counterpart gives rise to a random diffusion matrix whose law we compute. A large deviation principle is shown to hold for this example. We finally show that, in general, the expectation of the random diffusion matrix equals the diffusion matrix of the averaged distribution.

math-ph↗
arXiv2010

Localization Properties of the Chalker-Coddington Model

The Chalker Coddington quantum network percolation model is numerically pertinent to the understanding of the delocalization transition of the quantum Hall effect. We study the model restricted to a cylinder of perimeter 2M. We prove firstly that the Lyapunov exponents are simple and in particular that the localization length is finite; secondly that this implies spectral localization. Thirdly we prove a Thouless formula and compute the mean Lyapunov exponent which is independent of M.

math-ph↗
arXiv2010

Dynamical Localization of Quantum Walks in Random Environments

The dynamics of a one dimensional quantum walker on the lattice with two internal degrees of freedom, the coin states, is considered. The discrete time unitary dynamics is determined by the repeated action of a coin operator in U(2) on the internal degrees of freedom followed by a one step shift to the right or left, conditioned on the state of the coin. For a fixed coin operator, the dynamics is known to be ballistic. We prove that when the coin operator depends on the position of the walker and is given by a certain i.i.d. random process, the phenomenon of Anderson localization takes place in its dynamical form. When the coin operator depends on the time variable only and is determined by an i.i.d. random process, the averaged motion is known to be diffusive and we compute the diffusion constants for all moments of the position.

math-ph↗
arXiv2010

Exponentially Accurate Semiclassical Tunneling Wave Functions in One Dimension

We study the time behavior of wave functions involved in tunneling through a smooth potential barrier in one dimension in the semiclassical limit. We determine the leading order component of the wave function that tunnels. It is exponentially small in $1/\hbar$. For a wide variety of incoming wave packets, the leading order tunneling component is Gaussian for sufficiently small $\hbar$. We prove this for both the large time asymptotics and for moderately large values of the time variable.

math-ph↗
arXiv2009

Repeated and continuous interactions in open quantum systems

We consider a finite quantum system S coupled to two environments of different nature. One is a heat reservoir R (continuous interaction) and the other one is a chain C of independent quantum systems E (repeated interaction). The interactions of S with R and C lead to two simultaneous dynamical processes. We show that for generic such systems, any initial state approaches an asymptotic state in the limit of large times. We express the latter in terms of the resonance data of a reduced propagator of S+R and show that it satisfies a second law of thermodynamics. We analyze a model where both S and E are two-level systems and obtain the asymptotic state explicitly (lowest order in the interaction strength). Even though R and C are not direcly coupled, we show that they exchange energy, and we find the dependence of this exchange in terms of the thermodynamic parameters. We formulate the problem in the framework of W*-dynamical systems and base the analysis on a combination of spectral deformation methods and repeated interaction model techniques. We do not use master equation approximations.

math-ph↗