Joint product numerical range and geometry of reduced density matrices

TL;DR

This paper explores the geometric structure of reduced density matrices in quantum many-body systems, revealing how ruled surfaces relate to physical phenomena like symmetry breaking and gapless states, using joint product numerical range analysis.

Contribution

It establishes a connection between the geometry of reduced density matrices and physical mechanisms in infinite-dimensional quantum systems through joint product numerical range analysis.

Findings

Ruled surfaces in reduced density matrix geometry can originate from symmetry breaking or gapless states.

The shape of the oloid surface exemplifies the interplay of these physical mechanisms.

The study links geometric features to physical properties in quantum many-body systems.

Abstract

The reduced density matrices of a many-body quantum system form a convex set, whose three-dimensional projection $\Theta$ is convex in $\mathbb{R}^3$. The boundary $\partial\Theta$ of $\Theta$ may exhibit nontrivial geometry, in particular ruled surfaces. Two physical mechanisms are known for the origins of ruled surfaces: symmetry breaking and gapless. In this work, we study the emergence of ruled surfaces for systems with local Hamiltonians in infinite spatial dimension, where the reduced density matrices are known to be separable as a consequence of the quantum de Finetti's theorem. This allows us to identify the reduced density matrix geometry with joint product numerical range $\Pi$ of the Hamiltonian interaction terms. We focus on the case where the interaction terms have certain structures, such that ruled surface emerge naturally when taking a convex hull of $\Pi$. We show that, a ruled surface on $\partial\Theta$ sitting in $\Pi$ has a gapless origin, otherwise it has a symmetry breaking origin. As an example, we demonstrate that a famous ruled surface, known as the oloid, is a possible shape of $\Theta$, with two boundary pieces of symmetry breaking origin separated by two gapless lines.