English

Time Evolution of Typical Pure States from a Macroscopic Hilbert Subspace

Quantum Physics 2023-02-24 v2

Abstract

We consider a macroscopic quantum system with unitarily evolving pure state ψtH\psi_t\in \mathcal{H} and take it for granted that different macro states correspond to mutually orthogonal, high-dimensional subspaces Hν\mathcal{H}_\nu (macro spaces) of H\mathcal{H}. Let PνP_\nu denote the projection to Hν\mathcal{H}_\nu. We prove two facts about the evolution of the superposition weights Pνψt2\|P_\nu\psi_t\|^2: First, given any T>0T>0, for most initial states ψ0\psi_0 from any particular macro space Hμ\mathcal{H}_\mu (possibly far from thermal equilibrium), the curve tPνψt2t\mapsto \|P_\nu \psi_t\|^2 is approximately the same (i.e., nearly independent of ψ0\psi_0) on the time interval [0,T][0,T]. And second, for most ψ0\psi_0 from Hμ\mathcal{H}_\mu and most t[0,)t\in[0,\infty), Pνψt2\|P_\nu \psi_t\|^2 is close to a value MμνM_{\mu\nu} that is independent of both tt and ψ0\psi_0. The first is an instance of the phenomenon of dynamical typicality observed by Bartsch, Gemmer, and Reimann, and the second modifies, extends, and in a way simplifies the concept, introduced by von Neumann, now known as normal typicality.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2210.10018,
  title  = {Time Evolution of Typical Pure States from a Macroscopic Hilbert Subspace},
  author = {Stefan Teufel and Roderich Tumulka and Cornelia Vogel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.10018},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

28 pages LaTeX, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T03:56:07.403Z