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Alex D. Gottlieb

Publications and source records attributed to Alex D. Gottlieb.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

Nonfreeness and related functionals for measuring correlation in many-fermion states

This article is a brief review of "nonfreeness" and related measures of "correlation" for many-fermion systems. The many-fermion states we deem "uncorrelated" are the gauge-invariant quasi-free states. Uncorrelated states of systems of finitely many fermions we call simply "free" states. Slater determinant states are free; all other free states are "substates" of Slater determinant states or limits of such. The nonfreeness of a many-fermion state equals the minimum of its entropy relative to all free states. Correlation functionals closely related to nonfreeness can be defined in terms of Rényi entropies; nonfreeness is the one that uses Shannon entropy. These correlation functionals all share desirable additivity and monotonicity properties, but nonfreeness has some additional attractive properties.

quant-ph

Concise configuration interaction expansions for three fermions in six orbitals

The Hilbert space for three fermions in six orbitals, lately dubbed the "Borland-Dennis setting," is a proving ground for insights into electronic structure. Borland and Dennis discovered that, when referred to coordinate systems defined in terms of its natural orbitals, a wave function in the Borland-Dennis setting has the same structure as a 3-qubit state. By dint of the Borland-Dennis Theorem, canonical forms for 3-qubit states have analogs in the Borland-Dennis setting. One of these canonical forms is based upon "max-overlap Slater determinant approximations." Any max-overlap Slater determinant approximation of a given wave function is the leading term in a 5-term configuration interaction (CI) expansion of that wave function. Our main result is that "max-overlap CIS approximations" also lead to 5-term CI expansions, distinct from those based on max-overlap Slater determinant approximations, though of the same symmetric shape. We also prove the analog of this result for 3-qubit setting.

quant-ph

Correlation in fermion or boson systems as the minimum of entropy relative to all free states

In the context of many-fermion systems, "correlation" refers to the inadequacy of an independent-particle model. Using "free" states as archetypes of our independent-particle model, we have proposed a measure of correlation that we called "nonfreeness" [Int. J. Quant. Inf. 5, 815 (2007)]. The nonfreeness of a many-fermion state was defined to be its entropy relative to the unique free state with the same 1-matrix. In this article, we prove that the nonfreeness of a state is the minimum of its entropy relative to all free states. We also extend the definition of nonfreeness to many-boson states and discuss a couple of examples.

quant-ph

Quantum and thermal fluctuations in bosonic Josephson junctions

We use the Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian to study quantum fluctuations in canonical equilibrium ensembles of bosonic Josephson junctions at relatively high temperatures, comparing the results for finite particle numbers to the classical limit that is attained as $N$ approaches infinity. We consider both attractive and repulsive atom-atom interactions, with especial focus on the behavior near the T=0 quantum phase transition that occurs, for large enough $N$, when attractive interactions surpass a critical level. Differences between Bose-Hubbard results for small $N$ and those of the classical limit are quite small even when $N \sim 100$, with deviations from the limit diminishing as 1/N.

cond-mat.quant-gas

Strongly separated pairs of core electrons in computed ground states of small molecules

We have performed full configuration interaction computations of the ground states of the molecules Be, BeH_2, Li, LiH, B, and BH and verified that the core electrons constitute "separated electron pairs." These separated pairs of core electrons have nontrivial structure; the core pair does not simply occupy a single spatial orbital. Our method of establishing the presence of separated electron pairs is direct and conclusive. We do not fit a separated pair model; we work with the wavefunctions of interest directly. To establish that a given group of spin-orbitals contains a quasi-separated pair, we verify by direct computation that the quantum state of the electrons that occupy those spin-orbitals is nearly a pure 2-electron state.

physics.chem-ph

Quantum noise thermometry for bosonic Josephson junctions in the mean field regime

Bosonic Josephson junctions can be realized by confining ultracold gases of bosons in multi-well traps, and studied theoretically with the $M$-site Bose-Hubbard model. We show that canonical equilibrium states of the $M$-site Bose-Hubbard model may be approximated by mixtures of coherent states, provided the number of atoms is large and the total energy is comparable to $k_BT$. Using this approximation, we study thermal fluctuations in bosonic Josephson junctions in the mean field regime. Statistical estimates of the fluctuations of relative phase and number, obtained by averaging over many replicates of an experiment, can be used to estimate the temperature and the tunneling parameter, or to test whether the experimental procedure is effectively sampling from a canonical thermal equilibrium ensemble.

physics.atom-ph

Opposite sign correlations in fermion or boson gases

We investigate pair correlations in trapped fermion and boson gases as a means to probe the quantum states producing the density fluctuations. We point out that "opposite sign correlations" (meaning pair correlations that are positive for fermions and negative for bosons) unambiguously indicate that the quantum many-particle state cannot be "free." In particular, a system of fermions that exhibits positive pair correlations cannot be described by any Slater determinant wavefunction. This insight may help one to interpret results of current experiments on ultracold atomic gases.

quant-ph

Properties of nonfreeness: an entropy measure of electron correlation

"Nonfreeness" is the (negative of the) difference between the von Neumann entropies of a given many-fermion state and the free state that has the same 1-particle statistics. It also equals the relative entropy of the two states in question, i.e., it is the entropy of the given state relative to the corresponding free state. The nonfreeness of a pure state is the same as its "particle-hole symmetric correlation entropy", a variant of an established measure of electron correlation. But nonfreeness is also defined for mixed states, and this allows one to compare the nonfreeness of subsystems to the nonfreeness of the whole. Nonfreeness of a part does not exceed that in the whole; nonfreeness is additive over independent subsystems; and nonfreeness is superadditive over subsystems that are independent on the 1-particle level.

quant-ph

Examples of bosonic de Finetti states over finite dimensional Hilbert spaces

According to the Quantum de Finetti Theorem, locally normal infinite particle states with Bose-Einstein symmetry can be represented as mixtures of infinite tensor powers of vector states. This note presents examples of infinite-particle states with Bose-Einstein symmetry that arise as limits of Gibbs ensembles on finite dimensional spaces, and displays their de Finetti representations. We consider Gibbs ensembles for systems of bosons in a finite dimensional setting and discover limits as the number of particles tends to infinity, provided the temperature is scaled in proportion to particle number.

quant-ph

New measure of electron correlation

We propose to quantify the "correlation" inherent in a many-electron (or many-fermion) wavefunction by comparing it to the unique uncorrelated state that has the same single-particle density operator as it does.

quant-ph

Convergence of continuous-time quantum walks on the line

The position density of a "particle" performing a continuous-time quantum walk on the integer lattice, viewed on length scales inversely proportional to the time t, converges (as t tends to infinity) to a probability distribution that depends on the initial state of the particle. This convergence behavior has recently been demonstrated for the simplest continuous-time random walk [see quant-ph/0408140]. In this brief report, we use a different technique to establish the same convergence for a very large class of continuous-time quantum walks, and we identify the limit distribution in the general case.

quant-ph

Convergence of coined quantum walks on d-dimensional Euclidean space

Coined quantum walks may be interpreted as the motion in position space of a quantum particle with a spin degree of freedom; the dynamics are determined by iterating a unitary transformation which is the product of a spin transformation and a translation conditional on the spin state. Coined quantum walks on the d-dimensional lattice can be treated as special cases of coined quantum walks on d-dimensional Euclidean space. We study quantum walks on d-dimensional Euclidean space and prove that the sequence of rescaled probability distributions in position space associated to the unitary evolution of the particle converges to a limit distribution.

quant-ph

Two examples of discrete-time quantum walks taking continuous steps

This note introduces some examples of quantum random walks in d-dimensional Eucilidean space and proves the weak convergence of their rescaled n-step densities. One of the examples is called the Plancherel quantum walk because the "quantum coin flip" is the Fourier Integral (or Plancherel) Transform. The other examples are the Birkhoff quantum walks, so named because the coin flips are effected by means of measure preserving transformations to which the Birkhoff's Ergodic Theorem is applied.

quant-ph

Accuracy of the time-dependent Hartree-Fock approximation for uncorrelated initial states

This article concerns the time-dependent Hartree-Fock (TDHF) approximation of single-particle dynamics in systems of interacting fermions. We find that the TDHF approximation is accurate when there are sufficiently many particles and the initial many-particle state is any Gibbs equilibrium state for noninteracting fermions (with Slater determinants as a special example). Assuming a bounded two-particle interaction, we obtain a bound on the error of the TDHF approximation, valid for short times. We further show that the error of the TDHF approximation vanishes at all times in the mean field limit.

quant-ph

Accuracy of the time-dependent Hartree-Fock approximation

This article examines the time-dependent Hartree-Fock (TDHF) approximation of single-particle dynamics in systems of interacting fermions. We find the TDHF approximation to be accurate when there are sufficiently many particles and the initial many-particle state is a Slater determinant, or any Gibbs equilibrium state for noninteracting fermions. Assuming a bounded two-particle interaction, we obtain a bound on the error of the TDHF approximation, valid for short times. We further show that the error of the the TDHF approximation vanishes at all times in the mean field limit.

math-ph

Mean field dynamics of fermions and the time-dependent Hartree-Fock equation

The time-dependent Hartree-Fock equations are derived from the N-particle Schrödinger equation with mean-field scaling in the infinite particle limit, for initial data that are like Slater determinants. Only the case of bounded interaction potentials is treated in this work. We prove that, in the infnite particle limit, the first partial trace of the N-particle density operator approaches the solution of the time-dependent Hartree-Fock equations in the trace norm.

math-ph