In quantum mechanics, a density matrix (or density operator) is a matrix that describes the quantum state of a physical system. It allows for the calculation of the probabilities of the outcomes of any measurement performed upon this system, using the Born rule. It is a generalization of the more usual state vectors or wavefunctions: while those can only represent pure states, density matrices can also represent mixed states. Mixed states arise in quantum mechanics in two different situations:

when the preparation of the system is not fully known, and thus one must deal with a statistical ensemble of possible preparations, and

when one wants to describe a physical system which is entangled with another, without describing their combined state.

Density matrices are thus crucial tools in areas of quantum mechanics that deal with mixed states, such as quantum statistical mechanics, open quantum systems, quantum decoherence, and quantum information. Definition and motivation

Quantum Monte Carlo approach to the non-equilibrium steady state of open quantum systems

Alexandra Nagy

Many-body open quantum systems are exposed to an essentially uncontrollable environment that acts as a source of decoherence and dissipation. As the exact treatment of such models is generally unfeasible, it is favourable to formulate an approximate description by means of the dynamics of the reduced density operator of the system. When studying models with a weak coupling to a memoryless environment, the existence of such solution is granted and the reduced dynamics is governed by the Lindblad quantum master equation. In recent years, open quantum systems have evolved into a major field of studies. Focus of these studies are the characterization of emergent phenomena and dissipative phase transitions, as well as the ongoing debate about whether quantum computing schemes are still hard to simulate classically --- and thus achieve quantum supremacy --- when in presence of some degree of noise-induced decoherence. However, the challenge posed by this task lies in the complexity of the density matrix that increases exponentially with the system size, and the quest for efficient numerical methods is a research field that is still in its infancy. Here, we first develop a real-time full configuration interaction quantum Monte Carlo technique that stems from a class of methods generally known as projector Monte Carlo. The approach enables the stochastic sampling of the Lindblad time evolution of the density matrix thanks to a massively parallel algorithm, thus providing estimates of observables on the non-equilibrium steady state. We present the underlying theory and introduce an initiator technique and importance sampling to reduce statistical error. We demonstrate the efficiency of the approach by applying it to the dissipative two-dimensional XYZ spin-1/2 model on a lattice. As the importance sampling of projector approaches is often combined with variational results, we then introduce a novel method that is based on the variational Monte Carlo methods and on a neural network representation of the density matrix. Thanks to the stochastic reconfiguration scheme, the application of the variational principle is translated into the actual integration of the Lindblad quantum master equation. We test the effectiveness of the method by modeling the steady state of the dissipative two-dimensional XYZ spin-1/2 model through a dissipative phase transition, and also the real-time dynamics of the dissipative Ising model. In addition, we discuss the application of the developed methods and the open questions of the field.

EPFL2020

Quantum phase transitions in low-dimensional weakly interacting disordered Bose gases

Joseph Saliba

In this thesis, we study the quantum phase transition triggered by an external random po- tential in ultra-cold low-dimensional weakly-interacting Bose gases at zero temperature. In one-dimensional systems, the quantum phases are characterized by the decay at long-range of the one-body density matrix. This decay exhibits an algebraic behaviour in the superfluid quasi-condensed phase while in the insulating Bose glass phase this it becomes exponen- tial, signaling the complete loss of coherence in the system. In two-dimensional systems, a characterization based on the long-range behaviour of the one-body density matrix appears to be highly demanding from a computational point of view. We therefore characterized the superfluid-insulator transition in two-dimensional systems by the low-energy behaviour of the cumulative density of states of the Bogoliubov excitations. While in the superfluid condensed phase this quantity grows as the square of the excitation energy in agreement with the existence of a finite velocity of sound, in the insulating Bose glass phase this power law is less than quadratic. This study is performed in the framework of an extended Bogoliubov approach properly adapted to treat low-dimensional Bose gases. Using a systematic numerical study, we draw the interaction-disorder phase diagrams of the superfluid-insulator transition in 1D and 2D. The phase boundary follows two different power- laws depending on the length scales characterizing the spatial correlations of the disorder and the strength of interactions. The power-law exponents were found to be in agreement with the ones predicted by scaling arguments, both in the white noise and the Thomas-Fermi regimes. In the two-dimensional system, the classical percolation threshold in the Thomas-Fermi limit was found to overestimate the critical disorder below which the onset of superfluidity should be observed for a given interaction strength.

EPFL2016

A quantum algorithm for the direct estimation of the steady state of open quantum systems

Nathan Ramusat, Vincenzo Savona

Simulating the dynamics and the non-equilibrium steady state of an open quantum system are hard computational tasks on conventional computers. For the simulation of the time evolution, several efficient quantum algorithms have recently been developed. However, computing the non-equilibrium steady state as the long-time limit of the system dynamics is often not a viable solution, because of exceedingly long transient features or strong quantum correlations in the dynamics. Here, we develop an efficient quantum algorithm for the direct estimation of averaged expectation values of observables on the non-equilibrium steady state, thus bypassing the time integration of the master equation. The algorithm encodes the vectorized representation of the density matrix on a quantum register, and makes use of quantum phase estimation to approximate the eigenvector associated to the zero eigenvalue of the generator of the system dynamics. We show that the output state of the algorithm allows to estimate expectation values of observables on the steady state. Away from critical points, where the Liouvillian gap scales as a power law of the system size, the quantum algorithm performs with exponential advantage compared to exact diagonalization.

VEREIN FORDERUNG OPEN ACCESS PUBLIZIERENS QUANTENWISSENSCHAF2021

Quantum phase transitions in low-dimensional weakly interacting disordered Bose gases

Joseph Saliba

EPFL2016

Quantum Monte Carlo approach to the non-equilibrium steady state of open quantum systems

Alexandra Nagy

EPFL2020

Density matrix

when the preparation of the system is not fully known, and thus one must deal with a statistical ensemble of possible preparations, and

when one wants to describe a physical system which is entangled with another, without describing their combined state.

Quantum Monte Carlo approach to the non-equilibrium steady state of open quantum systems

Quantum phase transitions in low-dimensional weakly interacting disordered Bose gases

A quantum algorithm for the direct estimation of the steady state of open quantum systems

Quantum phase transitions in low-dimensional weakly interacting disordered Bose gases

A quantum algorithm for the direct estimation of the steady state of open quantum systems

Quantum Monte Carlo approach to the non-equilibrium steady state of open quantum systems