No Arabic abstract
The mapping, exact or approximate, of a many-body problem onto an effective single-body problem is one of the most widely used conceptual and computational tools of physics. Here, we propose and investigate the inverse map of effective approximate single-particle equations onto the corresponding many-particle system. This approach allows us to understand which interacting system a given single-particle approximation is actually describing, and how far this is from the original physical many-body system. We illustrate the resulting reverse engineering process by means of the Kohn-Sham equations of density-functional theory. In this application, our procedure sheds light on the non-locality of the density-potential mapping of DFT, and on the self-interaction error inherent in approximate density functionals.
The probabilistic character of the measurement process is one of the most puzzling and fascinating aspects of quantum mechanics. In many-body systems quantum mechanical noise reveals non-local correlations of the underlying many-body states. Here, we provide a complete experimental analysis of the shot-to-shot variations of interference fringe contrast for pairs of independently created one-dimensional Bose condensates. Analyzing different system sizes we observe the crossover from thermal to quantum noise, reflected in a characteristic change in the distribution functions from Poissonian to Gumbel-type, in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions based on the Luttinger liquid formalism. We present the first experimental observation of quasi long-range order in one-dimensional atomic condensates, which is a hallmark of quantum fluctuations in one-dimensional systems. Furthermore, our experiments constitute the first analysis of the full distribution of quantum noise in an interacting many-body system.
Controlling interactions is the key element for quantum engineering of many-body systems. Using time-periodic driving, a naturally given many-body Hamiltonian of a closed quantum system can be transformed into an effective target Hamiltonian exhibiting vastly different dynamics. We demonstrate such Floquet engineering with a system of spins represented by Rydberg states in an ultracold atomic gas. Applying a sequence of spin manipulations, we change the symmetry properties of the effective Heisenberg XYZ Hamiltonian. As a consequence, the relaxation behavior of the total spin is drastically modified. The observed dynamics can be qualitatively captured by a semi-classical simulation. Synthesising a wide range of Hamiltonians opens vast opportunities for implementing quantum simulation of non-equilibrium dynamics in a single experimental setting.
We present a method using Feynman-like diagrams to calculate the statistical properties of random many-body potentials. This method provides a promising alternative to existing techniques typically applied to this class of problems, such as the method of supersymmetry and the eigenvector expansion technique pioneered in [1]. We use it here to calculate the fourth, sixth and eighth moments of the average level density for systems with $m$ bosons or fermions that interact through a random $k$-body Hermitian potential ($k le m$); the ensemble of such potentials with a Gaussian weight is known as the embedded Gaussian Unitary Ensemble (eGUE) [2]. Our results apply in the limit where the number $l$ of available single-particle states is taken to infinity. A key advantage of the method is that it provides an efficient way to identify only those expressions which will stay relevant in this limit. It also provides a general argument for why these terms have to be the same for bosons and fermions. The moments are obtained as sums over ratios of binomial expressions, with a transition from moments associated to a semi-circular level density for $m < 2k$ to Gaussian moments in the dilute limit $k ll m ll l$. Regarding the form of this transition, we see that as $m$ is increased, more and more diagrams become relevant, with new contributions starting from each of the points $m = 2k, 3k, ldots, nk$ for the $2n$-th moment.
We consider a non-interacting many-fermion system populating levels of a unitary random matrix ensemble (equivalent to the q=2 complex Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model) - a generic model of single-particle quantum chaos. We study the corresponding many-particle level statistics by calculating the spectral form factor analytically using algebraic methods of random matrix theory, and match it with an exact numerical simulation. Despite the integrability of the theory, the many-body spectral rigidity is found to have a surprisingly rich landscape. In particular, we find a residual repulsion of distant many-body levels stemming from single-particle chaos, together with islands of level attraction. These results are encoded in an exponential ramp in the spectral form-factor, which we show to be a universal feature of non-ergodic many-fermion systems embedded in a chaotic medium.
We present a general scheme for the study of frustration in quantum systems. We introduce a universal measure of frustration for arbitrary quantum systems and we relate it to a class of entanglement monotones via an exact inequality. If all the (pure) ground states of a given Hamiltonian saturate the inequality, then the system is said to be inequality saturating. We introduce sufficient conditions for a quantum spin system to be inequality saturating and confirm them with extensive numerical tests. These conditions provide a generalization to the quantum domain of the Toulouse criteria for classical frustration-free systems. The models satisfying these conditions can be reasonably identified as geometrically unfrustrated and subject to frustration of purely quantum origin. Our results therefore establish a unified framework for studying the intertwining of geometric and quantum contributions to frustration.