arXiv subjects

Esteban Calzetta

Publications and source records attributed to Esteban Calzetta.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2010

Decoherence of scalar cosmological perturbations

In this paper we analyze the possibility of detecting nontrivial quantum phenomena in observations of the temperature anisotropy of the cosmic background radiation (CBR), for example, if the Universe could be found in a coherent superposition of two states corresponding to different CBR temperature self-correlations. Such observations are sensitive to scalar primordial fluctuations but insensitive to tensor fluctuations, which are therefore converted into an environment for the former. Even for a free inflaton field minimally coupled to gravity, scalar-tensor interactions induce enough decoherence among histories of the scalar fluctuations as to render them classical under any realistic probe of their amplitudes.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2009

Kadanoff-Baym equations for near-Kolmogorov turbulence

We use the 2 particle irreducible Schwinger-Keldysh effective action to set up consistent equations for the velocity and pressure correlations of a turbulent flow. We use these equations to derive the Kadanoff-Baym equations describing the relaxation to Kolmogorov turbulence in the absence of mean velocities.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2009

Fourth order full quantum correlations from a Langevin-Schwinger-Dyson equation

It is well known that some quantum and statistical fluctuations of a quantum field may be recovered by adding suitable stochastic sources to the mean field equations derived from the Schwinger-Keldysh (Closed-time-path) effective action. In this note we show that this method can be extended to higher correlations and higher (n-particle irreducible) effective actions. As an example, we investigate three and fourth order correlations by adding stochastic sources to the Schwinger - Dyson equations derived from the 2-particle irreducible effective. This method is a simple way to investigate the nonlinear dynamics of quantum fluctuations.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2009

Friction factor for turbulent flow in rough pipes from Heisenberg's closure hypothesis

We show that the main results of the analysis of the friction factor for turbulent pipe flow reported in G. Gioia and P. Chakraborty (GC), Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 044502 (1996) can be recovered by assuming the Heisenberg closure hypothesis for the turbulent spectrum. This highlights the structural features of the turbulent spectrum underlying GC's analysis.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2007

Collapse times for attractive Bose-Einstein condensates

We argue that the main mechanism for condensate collapse in an attractive Bose-Einstein condensate is the loss of coherence between atoms a finite distance apart, rather than the growth of the occupation number in noncondensate modes. Since the former mechanism is faster than the latter by a factor of approximately 3/2, this helps to dispel the apparent failure of field theoretical models in predicting the collapse time of the condensate.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2007

A nonequilibrium renormalization group approach to turbulent reheating

We use nonequilibrium renormalization group (RG) techniques to analyze the thermalization process in quantum field theory, and by extension reheating after inflation. Even if at a high scale $Λ$ the theory is described by a non-dissipative $λϕ^{4}$ theory, the RG running induces nontrivial noise and dissipation. For long wavelength, slowly varying field configurations, the noise and dissipation are white and ohmic, respectively. The theory will then tend to thermalize to an effective temperature given by the fluctuation-dissipation theorem.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2007

Stochastic Gross-Pitaevsky Equation for BEC via Coarse-Grained Effective Action

We sketch the major steps in a functional integral derivation of a new set of Stochastic Gross-Pitaevsky equations (GPE) for a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) confined to a trap at zero temperature with the averaged effects of non-condensate modes incorporated as stochastic sources. The closed-time-path (CTP) coarse-grained effective action (CGEA) or the equivalent influence functional method is particularly suitable because it can account for the full back-reaction of the noncondensate modes on the condensate dynamics self-consistently. The Langevin equations derived here containing nonlocal dissipation together with colored and multiplicative noises are useful for a stochastic (as distinguished from say, a kinetic) description of the nonequilibrium dynamics of a BEC. This short paper contains original research results not yet published anywhere.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2006

Inflation and nonequilibrium renormalization group

We study de spectrum of primordial fluctuations and the scale dependence of the inflaton spectral index due to self-interactions of the field. We compute the spectrum of fluctuations by applying nonequilibrium renormalization group techniques.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2006

Real time approach to tunneling in open quantum systems: decoherence and anomalous diffusion

Macroscopic quantum tunneling is described using the master equation for the reduced Wigner function of an open quantum system at zero temperature. Our model consists of a particle trapped in a cubic potential interacting with an environment characterized by dissipative and normal and anomalous diffusion coefficients. A representation based on the energy eigenfunctions of the isolated system, i.e. the system uncoupled to the environment, is used to write the reduced Wigner function, and the master equation becomes simpler in that representation. The energy eigenfunctions computed in a WKB approximation incorporate the tunneling effect of the isolated system and the effect of the environment is described by an equation that it is in many ways similar to a Fokker-Planck equation. Decoherence is easily identified from the master equation and we find that when the decoherence time is much shorter than the tunneling time the master equation can be approximated by a Kramers like equation describing thermal activation due to the zero point fluctuations of the quantum environment. The effect of anomalous diffusion can be dealt with perturbatively and its overall effect is to inhibit tunneling.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2005

Bose - Einstein Condensate Superfluid-Mott Insulator Transition in an Optical Lattice

We present in this paper an analytical model for a cold bosonic gas on an optical lattice (with densities of the order of 1 particle per site) targeting the critical regime of the Bose - Einstein Condensate superfluid - Mott insulator transition. We focus on the computation of the one - body density matrix and its Fourier transform, the momentum distribution which is directly obtainable from `time of flight'' measurements. The expected number of particles with zero momentum may be identified with the condensate population, if it is close to the total number of particles. Our main result is an analytic expression for this observable, interpolating between the known results valid for the two regimes separately: the standard Bogoliubov approximation valid in the superfluid regime and the strong coupling perturbation theory valid in the Mott regime.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2005

Gauge-invariant Effective Action for the Dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates with a fixed number of atoms

In this paper we present a particle-number-conserving (PNC) functional formalism to describe the dynamics of a cold bosonic gas. Treating the total number of particles as a constraint, whereby the phase invariance of the theory becomes local in time, we study this U(1) gauge theory using DeWitt's "gauge invariant effective action" techniques. Our functional formulation and earlier PNC proposals are shown to yield equivalent results to next-to-leading order in an expansion in the inverse powers of the total number of particles. In this more general framework we also show that earlier PNC proposals can be seen as different gauge (and gauge fixing condition) choices within the same physical theory.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2004

Quantum Kinetic Theory of BEC Lattice Gas:Boltzmann Equations from 2PI-CTP Effective Action

We continue our earlier work [Ana Maria Rey, B. L. Hu, Esteban Calzetta, Albert Roura and Charles W. Clark, Phys. Rev. A 69, 033610 (2004)] on the nonequilibrium dynamics of a Bose Einstein condensate (BEC) selectively loaded into every third site of a one-dimensional optical lattice. From the two-particle irreducible (2PI) closed-time-path (CTP) effective action for the Bose- Hubbard Hamiltonian, we show how to obtain the Kadanoff-Baym equations of quantum kinetic theory. Using the quasiparticle approximation, we show that the local equilibrium solutions of these equations reproduce the second- order corrections to the self-energy originally derived by Beliaev. This work paves the way for the use of effective action methods in the derivation of quantum kinetic theory of many atom systems.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2004

Macroscopic quantum tunneling with decoherence

The tunneling probability for a system modelling macroscopic quantum tunneling is computed. We consider an open quantum system with one degree of freedom consisting of a particle trapped in a cubic potential interacting with an environment characterized by a dissipative and a diffusion parameter. A representation based on the energy eigenfunctions of the isolated system, i. e. the system uncoupled to the environment, is used to write the dynamical master equation for the reduced Wigner function of the open quantum system. This equation becomes very simple in that representation. The use of the WKB approximation for the eigenfunctions suggests an approximation which allows an analytic computation of the tunneling rate, in this real time formalism, when the system is initially trapped in the false ground state. We find that the decoherence produced by the environment suppresses tunneling in agreement with results in other macroscopic quantum systems with different potentials. We confront our analytical predictions with an experiment where the escape rate from the zero voltage state was measured for a current-biased Josephson junction shunted with a resistor.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2003

Macroscopic description of preheating

We present a macroscopic model of the decay of a coherent classical scalar field into statistical fluctuations through the process of parametric amplification. We solve the field theory (henceforth,"microscopic") model to leading order in a Large N expansion, and show that the macroscopic model gives satisfactory results for the evolution of the field, its conjuguate momentum and the energy momentum tensor of the fluctuations over many oscillations. The macroscopic model is substantially simpler then the microscopic one, and can be easily generalized to include quantum fluctuations. Although we assume here and homogeneous situation, the model is fully covariant, and can be applied in inhomogeneous cases as well. These features make this a promising model in exploring the physics of preheating.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2003

Nonequilibrium Dynamics of Optical Lattice-Loaded BEC Atoms: Beyond HFB Approximation

In this work a two-particle irreducible (2PI) closed-time-path (CTP) effective action is used to describe the nonequilibrium dynamics of a Bose Einstein condensate (BEC) selectively loaded into every third site of a one-dimensional optical lattice. The motivation of this work is the recent experimental realization of this system at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) where the placement of atoms in an optical lattice is controlled by using an intermediate superlattice. Under the 2PI CTP scheme with this initial configuration, three different approximations are considered: a) the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB) approximation, b) the next-to-leading order 1/$\mathcal{N}$ expansion of the 2PI effective action up to second order in the interaction strength and c) a second order perturbative expansion in the interaction strength. We present detailed comparisons between these approximations and determine their range of validity by contrasting them with the exact many body solution for a moderate number of atoms and wells. As a general feature we observe that because the second order 2PI approximations include multi-particle scattering in a systematic way, they are able to capture damping effects exhibited in the exact solution that a mean field collisionless approach fails to produce. While the second order approximations show a clear improvement over the HFB approximation our numerical result shows that they do not work so well at late times, when interaction effects are significant.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2003

BEC Collapse, Particle Production and Squeezing of the Vacuum

Phenomena associated with the controlled collapse of a Bose-Einstein condensate described in the experiment of Donley et al (E. Donley et. al., Nature 412, 295 (2001); N. Claussen, Ph. D. Thesis, U. of Colorado (2003)) are explained here as a consequence of the squeezing and amplification of quantum fluctuations above the condensate by the condensate dynamics. In analyzing the changing amplitude and particle contents of these excitations, our simple physical picture provides excellent quantitative fits with experimental data on the scaling behavior of the collapse time and the amount of particles emitted in the jets.

cond-mat↗

arXiv2003

Activation-like processes at zero temperature

We examine the possibility that a metastable quantum state could experiment a phenomenon similar to thermal activation but at zero temperature. In order to do that we study the real-time dynamics of the reduced Wigner function in a simple open quantum system: an anharmonic oscillator with a cubic potential linearly interacting with an environment of harmonic oscillators. Our results suggest that this activation-like phenomenon exists indeed as a consequence of the fluctuations induced by the environment and that its associated decay rate is comparable to the tunneling rate as computed by the instanton method, at least for the particular potential of the system and the distribution of frequencies for the environment considered in this paper. However, we are not able to properly deal with the term which leads to tunneling in closed quantum systems, and a definite conclusion cannot be reached until tunneling and activation-like effects are considered simultaneously.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2002

Renormalization group and nonequilibrium action in stochastic field theory

We investigate the renormalization group approach to nonequilibrium field theory. We show that it is possible to derive nontrivial renormalization group flow from iterative coarse graining of a closed-time-path action. This renormalization group is different from the usual in quantum field theory textbooks, in that it describes nontrivial noise and dissipation. We work out a specific example where the variation of the closed-time-path action leads to the so-called Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation, and show that the renormalization group obtained by coarse graining this action, agrees with the dynamical renormalization group derived by directly coarse graining the equations of motion.

cond-mat↗