# References

Quantum dynamics and   
Gram’s matrix

M. De Cock, M. Fannes<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1Onderzoeksleider FWO Vlaanderen, P. Spincemaille

Instituut voor Theoretische Fysica

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Celestijnenlaan 200D

B-3001 Heverlee, Belgium

## Abstract

We propose to analyse the statistical properties of a sequence of vectors using the spectrum of the associated Gram matrix. Such sequences arise e.g. by the repeated action of a deterministic kicked quantum dynamics on an initial condition or by a random process. We argue that, when the number of time-steps, suitably scaled with respect to $`\mathrm{}`$, increases, the limiting eigenvalue distribution of the Gram matrix reflects the possible quantum chaoticity of the original system as it tends to its classical limit. This idea is subsequently applied to study the long-time properties of sequences of random vectors at the time scale of the dimension of the Hilbert space of available states.

PACS numbers: 02.50.Cw, 03.65.-w, 05.45.+b 

Discretising a classical dynamical system is in order if we want to simulate it on a computer. Its compact phase space may for this purpose be covered by a large number $`N`$ of small patches of Lebesgue measure $`1/N`$. The evolution, which we assume measure preserving and discrete in time, translates approximately in a bijection of the patches. Such a description involves always an approximation as patches change their shape in the course of time. It is of course helpful for actual model systems to label the patches in a way that mimics the kinematic structure of phase space. So, we obtain after this coarse-graining procedure for each $`N`$ a one to one transformation $`\pi `$ of the set $`\{1,2,\mathrm{},N\}`$ that determines the evolution during one tick of the clock. The phase portrait consists in partitioning the discrete phase space into closed orbits of $`\pi `$ and the crucial information is the number of orbits together with their length as a function of $`N`$. An ergodic island of non-zero measure in the dynamical system will signal its presence by the occurrence of an orbit with a period proportional to $`N`$. Iterating the dynamical map on an initial point $`i_0`$ provides us with a sequence $`𝒊=(i_0,\pi (i_0),\pi ^2(i_0),\mathrm{})`$ of points in $`\{1,2,\mathrm{},N\}`$ and we can distinguish between points belonging to ergodic or regular regions of phase space by examining the period of the time sequence of $`i_0`$ as a function of $`N`$.

Truly quantum dynamical systems with compact phase space are finite dimensional in virtue of the uncertainty principle. As each state occupies a same volume $`\mathrm{}`$, the dimension of their Hilbert space of states is $`1/\mathrm{}`$. Planck’s constant has here a rather symbolic meaning: for $`d`$-dimensional systems it is the $`d`$-th power of the actual Planck constant, while $`\mathrm{}=1/(2j+1)`$ for a spin with angular momentum $`j`$. The $`d`$-dimensional complex Hilbert space, or, more precisely, the space of complex rays in $`𝑪^d`$ is the quantum space with $`d`$ elements. The space of rays is called the projective Hilbert space of dimension $`d`$ and denoted by $`\mathrm{pr}𝑪^d`$. In dimension 2, it turns out to be the unit sphere in $`𝑹^3`$ with antipodal points identified. In contrast to a classical space, distinct points can lie arbitrarily close, the distance between the rays $`[\phi ]=𝑪\phi `$ and $`[\psi ]=𝑪\psi `$ generated by the normalised vectors $`\phi `$ and $`\psi `$ being

$$\mathrm{d}([\phi ],[\psi ]):=\underset{z𝑪,|z|=1}{inf}\phi z\psi =22|\phi ,\psi |=4\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{\theta }{2},$$
(1)   
with $`\theta [0,\pi /2]`$ the angle between the rays. The maximal separation between points is reached when they correspond to orthogonal rays. Projective Hilbert spaces carry a natural Riemannian structure given by the Study-Fubini metric, but we shall not be so much concerned here with this continuum feature and rather focus on their discrete aspects.

A quantum evolution in discrete time, also called kicked evolution, is determined by a unitary Floquet operator $`u`$. In Schrödinger picture, $`\phi u\phi `$ is the evolution between two consecutive kicks. We use the same notation to denote the corresponding evolution in the space of rays: $`pup`$. We now face the problem of studying time sequences $`𝒑=(p_0,up_0,u^2p_0,\mathrm{})`$ generated by a Floquet operator $`u`$ as it acts repeatedly on an initial condition $`p_0`$.

In the vast literature on quantum chaos, dynamical properties of quantum systems are often investigated by considering the temporal behaviour of the Husimi or the Wigner functions corresponding to well-localised states in phase space, such as coherent states. Such a description relies, in taking the (semi)-classical limit, on a definite geometrical picture of the corresponding classical phase space i.e. on a particular choice of basic observables such as the usual position and momentum or angular momentum. Many references can be found in  and . We argue in this letter that it is worthwhile to put things in a more abstract perspective. Gram’s matrix, or rather its spectrum, provides us with a powerful tool to analyse the statistical properties of time-sequences of points in a projective Hilbert space.

The Gram matrix $`\mathrm{G}(𝝋)`$ of a sequence $`𝝋=(\phi (1),\phi (2),\mathrm{},\phi (K))`$ of vectors is

$$\mathrm{G}(𝝋)=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\phi (1),\phi (1)& \phi (1),\phi (2)& \mathrm{}& \phi (1),\phi (K)\\ \phi (2),\phi (1)& \phi (2),\phi (2)& \mathrm{}& \phi (2),\phi (K)\\ \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}\\ \phi (K),\phi (1)& \phi (K),\phi (2)& \mathrm{}& \phi (K),\phi (K)\end{array}\right).$$
(2)   
$`\mathrm{G}(𝝋)`$ is positive definite and its rank equals the dimension of the space spanned by the $`\phi (j)`$ . In particular $`𝝋`$ is linearly independent if and only if $`det(\mathrm{G}(𝝋))0`$. The spectrum of $`\mathrm{G}(𝝋)`$ is independent on the order of the $`\phi (j)`$ in $`𝝋`$ and on multiplying the $`\phi (j)`$ with a complex number of modulus 1. This means that for a given sequence $`𝒑=(p(1),p(2),\mathrm{},p(K))`$ of points in a projective Hilbert space, specified by normalised vectors $`\phi (j)`$ as $`p(j)=[\phi (j)]`$, the spectrum of $`\mathrm{G}(𝝋)`$ depends only on $`𝒑`$ and that it is insensitive to the order of the points in $`𝒑`$. It may therefore be denoted by $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(𝒑)`$.

Let us for a moment consider a classical word $`𝒊=(i(1),i(2),\mathrm{},i(K))`$ where the letters are chosen from a given alphabet $`\{1,2,\mathrm{}\}`$. In fact, $`𝒊`$ is in one to one correspondence with a sequence $`𝒑=([e_{i(1)}],[e_{i(2)}],\mathrm{},[e_{i(K)}])`$ of vectors through the identification of $`j`$ with $`e_j`$ for an orthonormal basis $`\{e_1,e_2,\mathrm{}\}`$ of a Hilbert space. Grouping $`e_{i(\mathrm{})}`$ with equal index $`j`$, the Gram matrix is block-diagonal with block $`E(j)`$ of the type

$$\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1& 1& \mathrm{}& 1\\ \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}\\ 1& 1& \mathrm{}& 1\end{array}\right).$$
(3)   
The dimension of $`E(j)`$ is precisely the multiplicity $`m(j)`$ of $`j`$ in $`𝒊`$. As the spectrum of $`E(j)`$ consists of the non-degenerate eigenvalue $`m(j)`$ and the $`m(j)1`$ degenerated eigenvalue 0, we find that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(𝒑)`$ determines precisely the amount of different numbers appearing in $`𝒊`$ with their multiplicity i.e. the relative frequencies of the different letters in $`𝒊`$. The spectrum of the Gram matrix of a very regular sequence $`𝒊`$ will consist of a few large naturals and a highly degenerated 0 while for sequences with many different indices the spectrum will be concentrated on small natural numbers appearing with high multiplicities. A same interpretation remains valid for the general non-commutative case: a Gram matrix with spectrum concentrated around small natural numbers points at a vector wandering wildly through the Hilbert space of the system and is therefore a sign of chaotic behaviour. More regular motion, such as precession or slow diffusion, signals its presence by large eigenvalues and a high occurrence of eigenvalues close to 0. In contrast to the classical case however, eigenvalues are no longer limited to natural numbers so that a same point in a projective Hilbert space can now be visited a fractional number of times.

The existence for quantum systems of an intermediate time scale with interesting and describable behaviour in between the very short one, of order $`\mathrm{log}\mathrm{}`$, where the quantum system slavishly follows its classical limit and the very long one where quasi-periodic behaviour, due to the discreteness of the spectrum of the Floquet operator, is dominant, is a central theme in many papers . We are, more precisely, interested in the limiting eigenvalue distribution of the Gram matrix when its dimension, the number of time-steps, tends to infinity, appropriately scaled with respect to the quantum parameter. To obtain this, we consider the limit of the empirical measure

$$\frac{1}{K}\underset{j=1}{\overset{K}{}}\delta (\lambda \gamma _j)$$

where the $`\gamma _j`$ are the eigenvalues of the Gram matrix. The limiting distribution should reflect the quantum character of the dynamics as it tends to its classical limit. We do not claim that we can settle this question but we shall at least provide some rigorous support for this expectation.

Instead of considering a genuine unitary dynamics acting on an initial condition, we consider sequences $`𝒑=(p(1),p(2),\mathrm{},p(K))`$ of points in the projective Hilbert space of dimension $`N`$, independently and randomly chosen with respect to the uniform measure. Recall that $`\mathrm{pr}𝑪^N`$ is compact and that it carries a unique normalised measure, called uniform, which is invariant under the action of every $`N\times N`$ unitary. Picking independent normalised vectors randomly with respect to this measure is quite different from picking the components of the vectors with respect to a given basis in an independent and random way with respect to some suitably chosen probability measure. Next, we compute the spectrum of the Gram matrix of such a sequence. This spectrum is of course a random object but it turns out that, in the limit of large $`N`$ and for a rescaled time $`\tau =K/N`$, the spectral distribution tends to a definite limit given by the Marchenko-Pastur distribution $`\mu _\tau `$ . The actual computations are somewhat involved and will be presented in . Though the Gram matrices are given in terms of independent random vectors, there is no independence between the entries. E.g., each Gram matrix is positive definite which is totally incompatible with independence of matrix elements. This makes the computation quite different from Wigner’s random matrix computation. $`\mu _\tau `$ is obtained either by a combinatorial argument in terms of its moments or by determining the expectation of the resolvent of the Gram matrix.

When $`0<\tau 1`$ the probability measure $`\mu _\tau `$ is given by a continuous density $`\rho `$. For very small $`\tau `$, we must choose relatively few vectors in a large space. This will often lead to almost orthogonal choices and therefore $`\rho `$ will be concentrated around 1. When $`\tau `$ increases to 1, there is a fair chance of many vectors overlapping and the support of $`\rho `$ will simultaneously extend towards 0, which is a lower bound of its support, and to larger positive values. When $`\tau >1`$ there will almost surely be a sizeable degree of linear dependence responsible for a high multiplicity of the eigenvalue 0. In fact, it turns out that $`\mu _\tau `$ decomposes for $`\tau >1`$ into an atom at 0 and an absolutely continuous part:

$$d\mu _\tau (x)=\frac{\tau 1}{\tau }\delta (x)dx+\rho (x)dx,$$
(4)   
where $`\rho `$ is the absolutely continuous part of $`\mu _\tau `$. The weight of $`\rho `$ is $`1/\tau `$. Moreover $`\rho `$ is compactly supported in the interval $`[(\sqrt{\tau }1)^2,(\sqrt{\tau }+1)^2]`$. A similar computation in the classical case yields a Poisson distribution. This result is reminiscent of Wigner’s semicircular distribution for the spectrum of large random matrices where compactness of the limiting distribution is also a typical feature of the non-commutativity . A simple measure of the dynamical entropy of the system is the length of the support of $`\mu _\tau `$. For our random dynamics, this quantity grows as $`4\sqrt{\tau }`$, in contrast to an expanding chaotic dynamics where the entropy grows linearly in $`\tau `$.

Figure 1: The limiting spectral distribution of $`G(𝒑)`$

The figure shows the limiting spectral distribution of Gram matrices in the region $`0.02\tau 3`$. The $`\delta `$ contribution of weight $`(\tau 1)/\tau `$ that appears for $`\tau >1`$ is rendered by the fat line, which has height $`(\tau 1)/\tau `$. The continuous part is, for all values of $`\tau `$, only non-vanishing for $`(\sqrt{\tau }1)^2<x<(\sqrt{\tau }+1)^2`$, but this is only visible in the figure for moderately small values of $`\tau `$. For $`\tau `$ tending to 0, a $`\delta `$ distribution at $`x=1`$ will appear and the probability density has for $`\tau =1`$ a singularity at $`x=0`$ of order $`1/2`$.

It is a pleasure to thank H. Wagner for his constant interest and enthusiasm in pointing out the relevance of geometrical cum statistical ideas in physics. Two of the authors (M.D.C. and P.S.) acknowledge financial support from FWO project G.0239.96.

Figure Captions

Figure 1: The limiting spectral distribution of $`G(𝒑)`$