arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Robert Sims.
We prove Lieb-Robinson bounds for the dynamics of systems with an infinite dimensional Hilbert space and generated by unbounded Hamiltonians. In particular, we consider quantum harmonic and certain anharmonic lattice systems.
For a large class of finite-range quantum spin models with half-integer spins, we prove that uniqueness of the ground state implies the existence of a low-lying excited state. For systems of linear size L, of arbitrary finite dimension, we obtain an upper bound on the excitation energy (i.e., the gap above the ground state) of the form (C\log L)/L. This result can be regarded as a multi-dimensional Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorem and provides a rigorous proof of a recent result by Hastings.
We review some recent results that express or rely on the locality properties of the dynamics of quantum spin systems. In particular, we present a slightly sharper version of the recently obtained Lieb-Robinson bound on the group velocity for such systems on a large class of metric graphs. Using this bound we provide expressions of the quasi-locality of the dynamics in various forms, present a proof of the Exponential Clustering Theorem, and discuss a multi-dimensional Lieb-Schultz-Mattis Theorem.
We investigate the low-lying excited states of the spin J ferromagnetic XXZ chain with Ising anisotropy Delta and kink boundary conditions. Since the third component of the total magnetization, M, is conserved, it is meaningful to study the spectrum for each fixed value of M. We prove that for J>= 3/2 the lowest excited eigenvalues are separated by a gap from the rest of the spectrum, uniformly in the length of the chain. In the thermodynamic limit, this means that there are a positive number of excitations above the ground state and below the essential spectrum.
The Sherrington-Kirkpatrick spin glass model has been studied as a source of insight into the statistical mechanics of systems with highly diversified collections of competing low energy states. The goal of this summary is to present some of the ideas which have emerged in the mathematical study of its free energy. In particular, we highlight the perspective of the cavity dynamics, and the related variational principle. These are expressed in terms of Random Overlap Structures (ROSt), which are used to describe the possible states of the reservoir in the cavity step. The Parisi solution is presented as reflecting the ansatz that it suffices to restrict the variation to hierarchal structures which are discussed here in some detail. While the Parisi solution was proven to be correct, through recent works of F. Guerra and M. Talagrand, the reasons for the effectiveness of the Parisi ansatz still remain to be elucidated. We question whether this could be related to the quasi-stationarity of the special subclass of ROSts given by Ruelle's hierarchal `random probability cascades' (also known as GREM).
We consider compactly supported perturbations of periodic Sturm-Liouville equations. In this context, one can use the Floquet solutions of the periodic background to define scattering coefficients. We prove that if the reflection coefficient is identically zero, then the operators corresponding to the periodic and perturbed equations, respectively, are unitarily equivalent. In some appendices, we also provide the proofs of several basic estimates, e.g. bounds and asymptotics for the relevant m-functions.
We consider solutions of the one-dimensional equation $-u'' +(Q+ λV) u = 0$ where $Q: \mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{R}$ is locally integrable, $V : \mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{R}$ is integrable with supp$(V) \subset [0,1]$, and $λ\in \mathbb{R}$ is a coupling constant. Given a family of solutions $\{u_λ \}_{λ\in \mathbb{R}}$ which satisfy $u_λ(x) = u_0(x)$ for all $x<0$, we prove that the zeros of $b(λ) := W[u_0, u_λ]$, the Wronskian of $u_0$ and $u_λ$, form a discrete set unless $V \equiv 0$. Setting $Q(x) := -E$, one sees that a particular consequence of this result may be stated as: if the fixed energy scattering experiment $-u'' + λV u = Eu$ gives rise to a reflection coefficient which vanishes on a set of couplings with an accumulation point, then $V \equiv 0$.
We provide a simple proof of the Lieb-Robinson bound and use it to prove the existence of the dynamics for interactions with polynomial decay. We then use our results to demonstrate that there is an upper bound on the rate at which correlations between observables with separated support can accumulate as a consequence of the dynamics.
Some recent developments in the theory of quantum spin systems are reviewed.
We summarize recent works on the stability under disorder of the absolutely continuous spectra of random operators on tree graphs. The cases covered include: Schrödinger operators with random potential, quantum graph operators for trees with randomized edge lengths, and radial quasi-periodic operators perturbed by random potentials.
We give a Lieb-Robinson bound for the group velocity of a large class of discrete quantum systems which can be used to prove that a non-vanishing spectral gap implies exponential clustering in the ground state of such systems.
The subject of this work are random Schroedinger operators on regular rooted tree graphs $\T$ with stochastically homogeneous disorder. The operators are of the form $H_λ(ω) = T + U + λV(ω)$ acting in $\ell^2(\T)$, with $T $ the adjacency matrix, $U$ a radially periodic potential, and $V(ω)$ a random potential. This includes the only class of homogeneously random operators for which it was proven that the spectrum of $H_λ(ω)$ exhibits an absolutely continuous (ac) component; a results established by A. Klein for weak disorder, in case U=0 and $V(ω)$ given by iid random variables on $\T$. Our main contribution is a new method for establishing the persistence of ac spectrum under weak disorder. The method yields the continuity in the disorder parameter of the ac spectral density of $H_λ(ω)$ at $λ= 0$. The latter is shown to converge in the $L^1$ sense over closed intervals in which $H_0$ has no singular spectrum. The analysis extends to random potentials whose values at different sites need not be independent, assuming only that their joint distribution is weakly correlated across different tree branches.
We consider the Laplacian on a rooted metric tree graph with branching number $ K \geq 2 $ and random edge lengths given by independent and identically distributed bounded variables. Our main result is the stability of the absolutely continuous spectrum for weak disorder. A useful tool in the discussion is a function which expresses a directional transmission amplitude to infinity and forms a generalization of the Weyl-Titchmarsh function to trees. The proof of the main result rests on upper bounds on the range of fluctuations of this quantity in the limit of weak disorder.
The recent proof by F. Guerra that the Parisi ansatz provides a lower bound on the free energy of the SK spin-glass model could have been taken as offering some support to the validity of the purported solution. In this work we present a broader variational principle, in which the lower bound, as well as the actual value, are obtained through an optimization procedure for which ultrametic/hierarchal structures form only a subset of the variational class. The validity of Parisi's ansatz for the SK model is still in question. The new variational principle may be of help in critical review of the issue.
We consider Schrödinger operators in $\ell^2(\Z)$ whose potentials are obtained by randomly concatenating words from an underlying set $\mathcal{W}$ according to some probability measure $ν$ on $\mathcal{W}$. Our assumptions allow us to consider models with local correlations, such as the random dimer model or, more generally, random polymer models. We prove spectral localization and, away from a finite set of exceptional energies, dynamical localization for such models. These results are obtained by employing scattering theoretic methods together with Furstenberg's theorem to verify the necessary input to perform a multiscale analysis.
We study one-dimensional, continuum Bernoulli-Anderson models with general single-site potentials and prove positivity of the Lyapunov exponent away from a discrete set of critical energies. The proof is based on Fürstenberg's Theorem. The set of critical energies is described explicitly in terms of the transmission and reflection coefficients for scattering at the single-site potential. In examples we discuss the asymptotic behavior of generalized eigenfunctions at critical energies.
We use scattering theoretic methods to prove strong dynamical and exponential localization for one dimensional, continuum, Anderson-type models with singular distributions; in particular the case of a Bernoulli distribution is covered. The operators we consider model alloys composed of at least two distinct types of randomly dispersed atoms. Our main tools are the reflection and transmission coefficients for compactly supported single site perturbations of a periodic background which we use to verify the necessary hypotheses of multi-scale analysis. We show that non-reflectionless single sites lead to a discrete set of exceptional energies away from which localization occurs.