No Arabic abstract
I solve a quantum chain whose Hamiltonian is comprised solely of local four-fermi operators by constructing free-fermion raising and lowering operators. The free-fermion operators are both non-local and highly non-linear in the local fermions. This construction yields the complete spectrum of the Hamiltonian and an associated classical transfer matrix. The spatially uniform system is gapless with dynamical critical exponent z=3/2, while staggering the couplings gives a more conventional free-fermion model with an Ising transition. The Hamiltonian is equivalent to that of a spin-1/2 chain with next-nearest-neighbour interactions, and has a supersymmetry generated by a sum of fermion trilinears. The supercharges are part of a large non-abelian symmetry algebra that results in exponentially large degeneracies. The model is integrable for either open or periodic boundary conditions but the free-fermion construction only works for the former, while for the latter the extended symmetry is broken and the degeneracies split.
We demonstrate using direct numerical diagonalization and extrapolation methods that boundary conditions have a profound effect on the bulk properties of a simple $Z(N)$ model for $N ge 3$ for which the model hamiltonian is non-hermitian. For $N=2$ the model reduces to the well known quantum Ising model in a transverse field. For open boundary conditions the $Z(N)$ model is known to be solved exactly in terms of free parafermions. Once the ends of the open chain are connected by considering the model on a ring, the bulk properties, including the ground-state energy per site, are seen to differ dramatically with increasing $N$. Other properties, such as the leading finite-size corrections to the ground-state energy, the mass gap exponent and the specific heat exponent, are also seen to be dependent on the boundary conditions. We speculate that this anomalous bulk behaviour is a topological effect.
The study of the entanglement dynamics plays a fundamental role in understanding the behaviour of many-body quantum systems out of equilibrium. In the presence of a globally conserved charge, further insights are provided by the knowledge of the resolution of entanglement in the various symmetry sectors. Here, we carry on the program we initiated in Phys. Rev. B 103, L041104 (2021), for the study of the time evolution of the symmetry resolved entanglement in free fermion systems. We complete and extend our derivations also by defining and quantifying a symmetry resolved mutual information. The entanglement entropies display a time delay that depends on the charge sector that we characterise exactly. Both entanglement entropies and mutual information show effective equipartition in the scaling limit of large time and subsystem size. Furthermore, we argue that the behaviour of the charged entropies can be quantitatively understood in the framework of the quasiparticle picture for the spreading of entanglement, and hence we expect that a proper adaptation of our results should apply to a large class of integrable systems. We also find that the number entropy grows logarithmically with time before saturating to a value proportional to the logarithm of the subsystem size.
We introduce a class of integrable dynamical systems of interacting classical matrix-valued fields propagating on a discrete space-time lattice, realized as many-body circuits built from elementary symplectic two-body maps. The models provide an efficient integrable Trotterization of non-relativistic $sigma$-models with complex Grassmannian manifolds as target spaces, including, as special cases, the higher-rank analogues of the Landau-Lifshitz field theory on complex projective spaces. As an application, we study transport of Noether charges in canonical local equilibrium states. We find a clear signature of superdiffusive behavior in the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class, irrespectively of the chosen underlying global unitary symmetry group and the quotient structure of the compact phase space, providing a strong indication of superuniversal physics.
We compute exactly the average spatial density for $N$ spinless noninteracting fermions in a $2d$ harmonic trap rotating with a constant frequency $Omega$ in the presence of an additional repulsive central potential $gamma/r^2$. We find that, in the large $N$ limit, the bulk density has a rich and nontrivial profile -- with a hole at the center of the trap and surrounded by a multi-layered wedding cake structure. The number of layers depends on $N$ and on the two parameters $Omega$ and $gamma$ leading to a rich phase diagram. Zooming in on the edge of the $k^{rm th}$ layer, we find that the edge density profile exhibits $k$ kinks located at the zeroes of the $k^{rm th}$ Hermite polynomial. Interestingly, in the large $k$ limit, we show that the edge density profile approaches a limiting form, which resembles the shape of a propagating front, found in the unitary evolution of certain quantum spin chains. We also study how a newly formed droplet grows in size on top of the last layer as one changes the parameters.
A definition of nonequilibrium free energy $mathcal{F}_{textsc{s}}$ is proposed for dynamical Gaussian quantum open systems strongly coupled to a heat bath and a formal derivation is provided by way of the generating functional in terms of the coarse-grained effective action and the influence action. For Gaussian open quantum systems exemplified by the quantum Brownian motion model studied here, a time-varying effective temperature can be introduced in a natural way, and with it, the nonequilibrium free energy $mathcal{F}_{textsc{s}}$, von Neumann entropy $mathcal{S}_{vN}$ and internal energy $mathcal{U}_{textsc{s}}$ of the reduced system ($S$) can be defined accordingly. In contrast to the nonequilibrium free energy found in the literature which references the bath temperature, the nonequilibrium thermodynamic functions we find here obey the familiar relation $mathcal{F}_{textsc{s}}(t)=mathcal{U}_{textsc{s}}(t)- T_{textsc{eff}} (t),mathcal{S}_{vN}(t)$ {it at any and all moments of time} in the systems fully nonequilibrium evolution history. After the system equilibrates they coincide, in the weak coupling limit, with their counterparts in conventional equilibrium thermodynamics. Since the effective temperature captures both the state of the system and its interaction with the bath, upon the systems equilibration, it approaches a value slightly higher than the initial bath temperature. Notably, it remains nonzero for a zero-temperature bath, signaling the existence of system-bath entanglement. Reasonably, at high bath temperatures and under ultra-weak couplings, it becomes indistinguishable from the bath temperature. The nonequilibrium thermodynamic functions and relations discovered here for dynamical Gaussian quantum systems should open up useful pathways toward establishing meaningful theories of nonequilibrium quantum thermodynamics.