Evolution of the eigenvalues and eigenstates of the single-particle reduced density operator during two-particle scattering

TL;DR

This paper numerically investigates how the eigenvalues and eigenstates of a particle's reduced density operator evolve during scattering, revealing a transition from a pure state to a discrete set of outcomes with detailed time-dependent behavior.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed numerical analysis of the time evolution of the reduced density operator's eigenvalues and eigenstates during scattering in one and two dimensions.

Findings

Late-time spectrum dominated by two eigenvalues related to transmission and reflection probabilities.

Eigenstates evolve into single-peaked or multi-peaked wavepackets depending on scattering dynamics.

Successive smaller eigenvalues correspond to superpositions of separated wavepackets.

Abstract

A particle initially in a pure state but interacting with some environment evolves into a discrete ensemble of pure states, the eigenstates of its reduced density operator, with ensemble probabilities given by the corresponding eigenvalues. In this work, we use numerics to present explicit results for the time-dependence of these eigenvalues and eigenstates for simple scattering experiments in one and two dimensions. This provides a time-resolved picture of the scattering process, showing in detail how an initial state described entirely in terms of continuous parameters evolves into a discrete set of possible outcomes, each with an associated probability and time-evolving wavefunction. We find that for scattering of Gaussian wavepackets in one dimension, the late time spectrum is dominated by two large eigenvalues nearly equal to the transmission and reflection probabilities associated with the central value of momentum. The corresponding eigenstates appear as single-peaked reflected or transmitted wavepackets. The remaining smaller eigenvalues, which increase to a maximum during scattering and then decrease to small values, correspond to reflected or transmitted wavepackets with multiple spatially separated parts. In this case and also for two-dimensional scattering, we find that successively smaller eigenvalues correspond to probability distributions with successively more peaks. These multi-peaked states correspond to outcomes of the scattering experiment where a particle initially in a single wavepacket ends up in a superposition of separated wavepackets after scattering.