Researchers from the University of South Florida, the University of Warsaw, and the University of Massachusetts Boston have developed a new framework for simulating energy dissipation in large-scale quantum systems, which could have significant implications for the energy industry. The team, led by J. E. Alba-Arroyo, Daniel Pęcak, Michael McNeil Forbes, and Gabriel Wlazłowski, published their findings in the journal Physical Review Letters.
The researchers have introduced a novel approach to model dissipative quantum dynamics in large Fermi systems, which are systems of particles that follow Fermi-Dirac statistics, such as electrons in a metal or neutrons in a neutron star. The method employs local Hermitian operators to simulate frictional forces while maintaining the unitarity of time evolution, meaning that the total probability of all possible outcomes remains conserved. This is a crucial aspect for accurate simulations of quantum systems.
Unlike previous methods based on the Lindblad equation, which can become computationally expensive as the system size grows, the new framework scales favorably with system size. This makes it particularly suitable for large-scale simulations relevant to the energy industry, such as those involving electronic transport in materials or nuclear processes in stars.
The researchers demonstrated that energy dissipation in their framework arises from the damping of particle currents and pairing-field fluctuations. They also developed a variant of the scheme that allows the particle number to vary over time, enabling controlled density scans. This could be useful for studying the behavior of materials under different conditions, such as varying electron densities in a material subjected to different voltages.
The method is versatile and can be applied to a wide range of systems, as illustrated by the researchers’ applications to spin-imbalanced unitary Fermi gases and nuclear matter in the neutron-star crust. The framework can also be extended to include stochastic noise, providing a foundation for studying fluctuation-dissipation dynamics and thermalization in strongly interacting Fermi superfluids. This could have implications for understanding energy dissipation and thermal management in advanced materials and devices.
In summary, the researchers have developed a powerful new tool for simulating energy dissipation in large-scale quantum systems. The method’s efficiency, versatility, and ability to handle large system sizes make it particularly valuable for the energy industry, where understanding and controlling energy dissipation is crucial for improving the performance and efficiency of various technologies. The research was published in Physical Review Letters.
This article is based on research available at arXiv.