2024/09/24 by Michele Fantechi, Fantechi, Michele, Marco Merkli +1
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #FOS: Physical sciences #Mathematical Physics (math-ph) #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2409.15850
openalex publication_date 2024/09/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We show that when a quantum system is coupled to an environment in a mean field way, then its effective dynamics is governed by a unitary group with a time-dependent Hamiltonian. The time-dependent modification of the bare system Hamiltonian is given by an explicit term involving the reservoir state. We show that entanglement within the system state is not changed during the dynamics. Our results hold for arbitrary strengths of the system-environment coupling, and for finite or infinite dimensional systems. As an application we show that the qualitative dynamical features of an N-body system can be altered drastically by the contact with the environment. For instance, bound states can turn into scattering states and vice-versa.