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# Singular continuous spectra in a pseudo-integrable billiard

## Abstract

The pseudo-integrable barrier billiard invented by Hannay and McCraw \[J. Phys. A 23, 887 (1990)\] – rectangular billiard with line-segment barrier placed on a symmetry axis – is generalized. It is proven that the flow on invariant surfaces of genus two exhibits a singular continuous spectral component.
PACS number: 05.45.-a

Billiards have attracted much attention in the recent decades as simple dynamical systems in classical and quantum mechanics. The free motion of a particle in a domain within a hard elastic boundary shows a large spectrum of behaviour depending on the shape of the boundary, ranging from complete regularity to various degrees of chaoticity.

Polygonal billiards are neither chaotic – the Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy is zero – nor integrable in the sense of Liouville-Arnol’d \[Arnold78\] (apart from the rectangles, the equilateral triangles, the $`\pi /2,\pi /4,\pi /4`$-triangles and the $`\pi /2,\pi /3,\pi /6`$-triangles). The motion inside a typical polygon is conjectured to be ergodic on the three-dimensional constant-energy surfaces in phase space, while the motion inside a rational polygon (all angles are rationally related to $`\pi `$) is restricted to two-dimensional invariant surfaces, like in integrable systems, but the genus of the surfaces is larger than 1. Rational polygonal billiards are therefore characterized as pseudo-integrable \[RichensBerry81\]. It is rigorously proven that the flow on these surfaces is ergodic and not mixing \[Gutkin96\]. Ergodicity means that a particle with a typical initial momentum explores the entire invariant surface (which is the billiard table in the configuration space projection). Since the mixing property is excluded, a small cluster of particles with identical initial momenta cannot spread out uniformly in time on the invariant surface. But a nonuniform spreading which allows occasional reclustering with decreasing frequency – weak mixing in mathematical terms (see e.g. \[AA68\]) – is possible. In fact, weak mixing is believed to be generic, but this is only shown for polygons all of whose sides are horizontal or vertical. Numerical evidence for weak mixing has been reported for the “square-ring billiard” \[AGR99\]; see also related numerical studies on rational \[Artuso97\] and irrational triangles \[ACG97, CP99\].

Weak mixing (in the absence of the stronger mixing property) implies interesting spectral properties \[CFS82\]. More precisely, the Fourier transform of a typical function on the phase space with respect to time has a fractal-like structure in the frequency domain. Such a spectrum is characterized as singular continuous, in contrast to discrete spectra of integrable systems (nonmixing, quasiperiodic motion) and absolutely continuous spectra of chaotic systems (mixing motion). Singular continuous spectra are well known in other fields of physics to appear at the border between integrability and chaos, e.g. strange nonchaotic attractors (see, e.g., \[PikovskyFeudel94b, FPP96\]), the (kicked) Harper model \[AC94\] and models for nonperiodic atomic structures (see \[GL90\] and references therein).

The spectral properties of a phase space function are related to its autocorrelation function (AF). For discrete spectra this function is (quasi-) periodic. In the periodic case the (normalized) AF returns exactly to 1, while in the quasiperiodic case it comes arbitrarily close to 1. An exponentially decreasing AF (for increasing time) indicates an absolutely continuous spectrum. An AF corresponding to a singular continuous spectrum does not usually decay to zero, but also does not return to 1.

A nongeneric subclass of pseudo-integrable systems is given by almost-integrable billiards \[Gutkin86\]. A member of this class is, roughly speaking, composed of several copies of a single completely integrable billiard, e.g. the $`\pi /3,2\pi /3`$-rhombus \[EFV84\] consists of two identical equilateral triangles. Motion on invariant surfaces of almost-integrable billiards is not weakly mixing \[Gutkin86\]. The aim of this letter is to establish that the spectra of these systems nevertheless can have a singular continuous component (together with a discrete component). We prove this for a simple model, a generalized version of the “barrier billiard” \[HM90\]. It is the first time that the existence of singular spectra in a given billiard is rigorously shown. This is achieved by decomposing the dynamics into a continuous and a discrete part: the quasiperiodical motion in the integrable subbilliard and the transitions between different copies. The latter type of motion, responsible for the singular continuous component, is discussed with the help of the AF.

We consider a point particle with unit mass elastically bouncing inside a polygonal enclosure consisting of a vertical line of length $`1\beta (0,1)`$ symmetrically placed in a rectangle with width $`L(0,\mathrm{})`$ and normalized height 1, see Fig. 1(a). The special case $`\beta =1/2`$ corresponds to the usual barrier billiard \[HM90\]. The trivial energy dependence of the system is ignored by setting the energy to 1/2, or equally the magnitude of the momentum $`(p_x,p_y)`$ to 1. Given an initial momentum only a finite number of directions is realized during the time evolution, due to the fact that all angles in the polygon are rational multiples of $`\pi `$. In other words, the motion in phase space takes place on two-dimensional invariant surfaces. Using the general formula for the genus of such surfaces \[RichensBerry81\] gives 2, i.e. the surfaces have the topology of two-handled spheres and not that of tori (single-handled spheres).

Our model satisfies the definition of almost-integrability given by Gutkin \[Gutkin86\] for all values of $`L`$ and $`\beta `$. It is composed of two copies of an integrable rectangular billiard, which can be obtained by symmetry reduction, see Fig. 1(b). The dynamics can be split into two parts. First, the quasiperiodical dynamics $`(|x(t)|,y(t))`$ on the invariant tori of the symmetry reduced system. Second, the dynamics of the sign of $`x`$, $`s(t)=\pm 1`$.

The quasiperiodical component is most elegantly described in action-angle variables. The actions $`I_x=|p_x|L/2\pi `$ and $`I_y=|p_y|/\pi `$ label the invariant tori while the angles (divided by $`2\pi `$ and computed modulo 1) describe the flow on a given torus

$`\varphi _x(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\omega _x}{2\pi }}t+\varphi _{x,o}(\text{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1})`$ (1)
$`\varphi _y(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\omega _y}{2\pi }}t+\varphi _{y,o}(\text{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}),`$ (2)
with the frequencies $`\omega _x=4\pi ^2I_x/L^2`$ and $`\omega _y=\pi ^2I_y`$. The flow on the torus is ergodic if and only if the winding number $`\rho =\omega _y/\omega _x=I_yL^2/(4I_x)`$ is irrational. The motion in configuration space is explicitly given by

$`|x(t)|`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{L}{2}}f(\varphi _x(t))`$ (3)
$`y(t)`$ $`=`$ $`f(\varphi _y(t)+{\displaystyle \frac{1\beta }{2}}(\text{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}))`$ (4)
with the piece-wise linear function

$`f(u)=\{\begin{array}{cc}2u& \text{if}0u<1/2\hfill \\ 2(1u)& \text{otherwise.}\hfill \end{array}`$

The shift in the argument of the function $`f`$ in Eq. (4) will be convenient later.

Now we consider the non-quasi-periodical part of the dynamics. Clearly, the value of $`s(t)`$ changes when the trajectory impinges on the segment {$`x=0`$ and $`1\beta <y`$} (or {$`\varphi _x=0`$ and $`0<\varphi _y<\beta `$}). We therefore introduce the Poincaré section $`\varphi _x(nT)=0`$ with $`T=2\pi /\omega _x`$ and the integer $`n`$. We obtain

$`\varphi _{y,n+1}`$ $`=`$ $`\varphi _{y,n}+\rho (\text{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1})`$ (5)
$`s_{n+1}`$ $`=`$ $`s_n\mathrm{\Phi }(\varphi _{y,n})`$ (6)
with

$`\mathrm{\Phi }(\varphi )=\{\begin{array}{cc}1& \text{if}0<\varphi <\beta \hfill \\ 1& \text{otherwise.}\hfill \end{array}`$

Note that diffractive orbits, i.e. orbits which hit the edge of the barrier, can be neglected since they have measure zero in phase space. The two-dimensional mapping (5)-(6) has the solution

$$s_n=s_0\mathrm{\Pi }_{j=0}^n\mathrm{\Phi }(\varphi _{y,0}+j\rho (\text{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1})).$$
(7)
This equation together with Eq. (1)-(4) and $`n`$ given by the integer part of $`t/T`$ solve the billiard problem. But the solution is only formal, because in order to compute (7) one has to iterate (5)-(6). A similar, but more complicated, solution of the rhombus billiard was reported in \[EFV84\]. But its formality was not recognized since the authors focussed only on the equation corresponding to (5), while the equation corresponding to (6) was hidden in the notation.

Having defined the dynamical system, we now discuss the spectral properties of a typical smooth phase space function $`F(x,p_x,y,p_y)`$ (nontypical functions $`F(x^2,p_x^2,y,p_y)`$ obviously have discrete spectra). We investigate firstly the function $`F(t)=x(t)`$ (the argumentation for $`p_x(t)`$ is identical). We will see that $`x(t)`$ has a singular continuous spectrum, which implies that a typical function has a mixture of discrete and singular continuous spectrum. With $`x(t)=s(t)|x(t)|`$ it is clear that the Fourier transform of $`x(t)`$,

$$X(\omega )=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}x(t)e^{i\omega t}𝑑t,$$
(8)
can be written as convolution of the Fourier transforms of $`|x(t)|`$ and $`s(t)`$, $`\overline{X}(\omega )`$ and $`S(\omega )`$

$$X(\omega )=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\overline{X}(\omega ^{})S(\omega \omega ^{})𝑑\omega ^{}.$$
(9)
Since $`|x(t)|`$ is periodic with period $`T`$ we have

$`\overline{X}(\omega ^{})={\displaystyle \underset{m=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}A_m\delta (\omega ^{}m\omega _x).`$

Substituting into Eq. (9) gives

$$X(\omega )=\underset{m=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}A_mS(\omega m\omega _x).$$
(10)
Since $`s(t)`$ changes in discrete steps it is suitable to consider the discrete-time Fourier transform of the sequence $`[s_n]`$

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )={\displaystyle \underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}s_ne^{i\omega n}`$

which is related to the continuous-time Fourier transform via

$$S(\omega )=\frac{1}{i\omega }(1e^{i\omega T})\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega T).$$
(11)
Note that the prefactor goes to the constant $`T`$ as $`\omega 0`$. We can now take advantage of the fact that the mapping (5)-(6) is well studied. It is proven (see \[Riley78\] and references therein) that if $`\rho `$ is irrational then $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$ is singular continuous for almost all $`\beta `$ (the spectrum is discrete, e.g., if $`\beta =n\rho (\text{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1})`$). Since this holds trivially also for any nonconstant function of $`s(t)`$ we conclude that the $`s`$-motion is weakly mixing \[CFS82\]. The fact that almost all trajectories in our billiard have irrational winding number $`\rho `$, independent of the values of the parameters $`L`$ and $`\beta `$, ensures that typical trajectories give rise to singular spectra $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$. Together with Eq. (10) and (11) this implies that $`X(\omega )`$ is typically singular continuous. Nevertheless, there exist nonconstant functions of $`x(t)`$, e.g. $`x^2(t)`$, which do not have a singular continuous spectrum, so the $`x`$-motion cannot be weakly mixing. This result indicates that a purely numerical detection of weak mixing by investigating the spectral properties of just a single phase space variable may lead to wrong conclusions.

Figure 2 shows an example of $`|X(\omega )|^2`$ close to the frequency $`\omega _x`$ (so essentially $`|S(\omega \omega _x)|^2`$ is shown) for the case $`\beta =1/2`$ and $`\rho `$ equal the reciprocal of the golden mean, $`\rho _{\text{gm}}=(\sqrt{5}1)/2`$. The integration (8) has been performed with a fading factor $`\mathrm{exp}(2t/t_{\text{max}})`$ and truncated at $`t_{\text{max}}=10000`$. The enlargement in Fig. 2 reveals some selfsimilarity of $`S(\omega )`$ for this set of parameters. The minor lack of symmetry is due to the prefactor in Eq. (11); $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$ is perfectly selfsimilar as shown by Feudel et al. \[FPP96\] by using a renormalization group approach (compare the magnification in Fig. 2 with Fig. 3 in \[FPP96\]). Feudel et al. have also calculated the generalized dimensions: (i) the Hausdorff dimension $`D_0=1`$, i.e. the spectrum is continuous. (ii) The information dimension $`D_10.75`$, i.e. the spectrum is singular. (iii) The correlation dimension $`D_20.65`$, which is the exponent of the power-law decay $`t^{D_2}`$ of the integrated AF \[KPG92\].

Before discussing the integrated AF, let us first consider the (normalized) AF ($`x(t)`$ has zero mean value)

$$R_x(\tau )=\frac{x(t+\tau )x(t)}{x^2(t)}$$
(12)
where the average $`\mathrm{}`$ is taken over $`t`$. We restrict ourself to the times $`\tau =nT`$. By using the periodicity of $`|x(t)|`$ it is an easy matter to show that $`R_x(nT)`$ is equal to $`R_s(n)`$, the AF of the process $`s_n`$ (where the average is over the discrete time $`n`$). This means we discuss here the correlations of the transitions between the two copies of the integrable subbilliard. For the special case $`\beta =1/2`$, $`R_s(n)`$ as function of $`n`$ is studied in \[PikovskyFeudel94b\] for different $`\rho `$. It is shown that $`R_s(n)`$ vanishes for odd $`n`$. For large even $`n`$ it is mostly close to zero but has large peaks at positions which roughly grow exponentially. For example, if $`\rho =\rho _{\text{gm}}`$ then peaks with amplitude $`0.55`$ are located at all even Fibonacci numbers surrounded by smaller peaks in a selfsimilar manner.

We have determined the integrated AF

$$R_{s,\text{int}}(n)=\frac{1}{n}\underset{j=0}{\overset{n}{}}|R_s(j)|^2$$
(13)
up to $`n_{\text{max}}=10000`$. Its asymptotic behaviour is found to be in agreement with the expected power-law decay, which allows us to compute $`D_2`$ numerically. For fixed $`\rho =\rho _{\text{gm}}`$, $`D_2`$ as function of $`\beta `$ (using 1000 randomly distributed $`\beta `$-values) has mean value $`0.458`$ and shows very strong fluctuations, ranging from large decay rates $`D_2=0.68`$ to zero decay. These fluctuations are by no means surprising, since there are dense sets of $`\beta `$-values (e.g. $`\beta =n\rho (\text{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1})`$) for which $`D_2`$ vanishes. We have also calculated $`D_2`$ for fixed $`\beta =1/2`$ as a function of $`\rho `$ (using 1000 $`\rho `$-values). Here, $`D_2`$ is more or less uniformly distributed between zero and $`0.94`$ around a mean value of $`0.469`$. Due to the sensitive dependence of $`D_2`$ on the winding number, it seems useful to perform an average of the AF over all invariant surfaces (i.e. over all $`\rho `$) in order to characterize the correlation properties of the transitions between the two copies of the subbilliard as a whole. But this kind of averaging does not yield a reasonable correlation function since for an integrable system such a function would indicate correlation decay \[CV81\].

The fact that the integrated AF (13) decays to zero but $`R_s`$ does not confirms the weak-mixing property of the $`s`$-motion. Because of $`R_x(nT)=R_s(n)`$ one could naively draw the wrong conclusion that the $`x`$-motion is also weakly mixing. This confusion can be resolved if one clearly distinguishes between continuous-time and discrete-time approaches. Trivially, $`R_x`$ does not decay for large continuous times $`\tau `$ if it does not decay for large discrete times $`n`$. But we expect that the integrated (now really an integration not a summation) AF of $`x(t)`$ does not decay, in contrast to the integrated AF of the process $`s_n`$ (the integrated AF of a general function $`F(x,y,p_x,p_y)`$ obviously shows zero decay rates, since $`y(t)`$ is periodic). This agrees with results of the study on an almost-integrable version of the “square-ring billiard” \[AGR99\]. It is worth emphasising that the discrete-time approach, which is always used in numerical studies where integrations are replaced by summations (for billiards the discrete-time approach is often used explicitly), can wrongly indicate weak mixing, even though this is quite unlikely.

In terms of the billiard motion we have the following scenario. The motion is not mixing and even not weakly mixing; that means, a small cluster of particles with the same initial momenta will not spread out on the entire billiard table. But the motion is “partly weak mixing” in the sense that after some transient time (when the AF is close to zero) there are two clusters, one in the left and one in the right part, each of them consisting of approximately half of the particles. At “resonant” times (corresponding to the peaks of the AF) one of the two clusters contains more particles than the other one. But these reclusterings become more and more rare with increasing time.

To summarize, we have proven that the motion in the pseudo-integrable barrier billiard exhibits a discrete and a singular continuous spectral component. We expect that this is true for all almost-integrable billiards.

I would like to thank R. Artuso for useful comments and M. Sieber and J. Nöckel for discussions.


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# Untitled Document

Measurement of a Quantum System Coupled to

Independent Heat-Bath and Pointer Modes

Dima Mozyrsky and Vladimir Privman

Department of Physics, Clarkson University

Potsdam, New York 13699–5820, USA

Electronic mail: privman@clarkson.edu

To be published in Modern Physics Letters B (2000).

Abstract

We present an exact derivation of a process in which a microscopic measured system interacts with heat-bath and pointer modes of a measuring device, via a coupling involving a general Hermitian operator $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ of the system. In the limit of strong interaction with these modes, over a small time interval, we derive the exact effective many-body density matrix of the measured system plus pointer. We then discuss the interpretation of the dynamics considered as the first stage in the process of quantum measurement, eventually involving the wave-function collapse due to interactions with “the rest of the universe.” We establish that the effective density matrix represents the required framework for the measured system and the pointer part of the measuring device to evolve into a statistical mixture described by direct-product states such that the system is in each eigenstate of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ with the correct quantum-mechanical probability, whereas the expectation values of pointer-space operators retain amplified information of the system’s eigenstate.

The problem of quantum measurement has fascinated scientists for a long time . It has been argued that a large “bath” is an essential ingredient of the measurement process. Interaction with the bath, which might be a heat-bath in thermal equilibrium, causes decoherence which is needed to form a statistical mixture of eigenstates out of the initially fully or partially coherent quantum state of the measured system. An “external” bath (“the rest of the universe”) may also play a role in selection of those quantum states of the pointer that manifest themselves in classical observations \[2-7\]. In this work we propose a model in which the pointer retains information on the measurement result because of its coupling to the measured system, without the need to couple it also to the internal bath. The measured system is still coupled to the internal bath.

In an exactly solvable model of a quantum oscillator coupled to a heat bath of oscillators, it has been shown  that the reduced density matrix of the system, with the bath traced over, decoheres, i.e., it looses its off-diagonal elements in the eigenbasis of the interaction Hamiltonian. Recent work on decoherence \[8-11\] has explored the latter effect for rather general cases, for bosonic (oscillator) and spin baths. Applications for various physical systems have been reported \[12-18\]. Fermionic heat bath has also been used in the literature .

It is clear, however, that the full function of a large, multimode measuring device, interacting with a small (microscopic) quantum system, must be different from thermal equilibration or similar averaging effect. The device must store and amplify the measurement outcome information. In this work we propose a solvable model that shows how this is accomplished.

It must be stressed that for a complete description of the measurement process one needs to interpret the transfer of the information stored after the system-pointer and system-internal bath interaction to the macroscopic level . Our attention here is no the process which corresponds to the first stage of the measurement, in which the pointer acquires amplified information by entanglement with the state of the system. Thus we do not claim to resolve the foundation-of-quantum mechanics issue of how that information is passed on to the classical world, involving the collapse of the wave functions of the system and each pointer mode. Indeed, it is unlikely that the wave function collapse can be fully described within the quantum-mechanical description of the three subsystems involved. Presumably, it would require consideration of an external bath with which the pointer and the internal bath interact. This problem is not presently solved \[1-3\], and we first sidestep it by assuming separation of time scales (see below). However, we later argue that our results provide useful hints on how to view the larger problem of quantum measurement.

We now identify the three quantum systems involved. First, the measured system, $`S`$, is a microscopic system with the Hamiltonian which will be also denoted by $`S`$. Second, the measuring device must have the “bath” or “body” part, $`B`$, containing many individual modes. The $`k`$th mode will have the Hamiltonian $`B_k`$. The bath part of the device is not observed, i.e., it can be traced over. Finally, the device must also have modes that are not traced over. These modes constitute the pointer, $`P`$, that amplifies the information obtained in the measurement process and can later pass it on for further amplification or directly to macroscopic (classical) systems. The $`m`$th pointer mode has the Hamiltonian $`P_m`$. It is expected that expectation values of some quantities in the pointer undergo a large change during the measurement process.

It turns out, a posteriori, that the device modes involved in the measurement process can be quite simple, and they need not interact with each other. This assumption allows us to focus on the evolution of the system $`S`$ and its effect on the pointer $`P`$. However, it is the pointer’s interaction with the external bath (some external modes, “the rest of the universe”) that is presumed to select those quantum states of $`P`$ that manifest themselves classically. For now, let us avoid the discussion of this matter, see \[2-6\], by assuming that the added evolution of the pointer due to such external interactions occurs on time scales larger than the measurement time, $`t`$. Similarly, when we state that the internal bath modes can be “traced over,” we really mean that their interactions with the rest of the universe are such that these modes play no role in the wave-function-collapse stage of the measurement process.

Furthermore, the measurement process probes the wavefunction of the measured system at the initial time, $`t=0`$, rather than its time evolution under $`S`$ alone. It is ideally instantaneous. In practice, it is faster than the time scales associated with the dynamics under $`S`$. Such a process can be obtained as the limit of a system in which very strong interactions between $`S`$ and $`B`$, and also between $`S`$ and $`P`$, are switched on at $`t=0`$ and switched off at $`t>0`$, with small time interval $`t`$. At later times, the pointer can interact with other, external systems to pass on the result of the measurement.

Thus, we assume that the Hamiltonian of the system itself, $`S`$, can be ignored in the process. The total Hamiltonian of the system plus device will be taken as

$$H=\underset{k}{}B_k+\underset{m}{}P_m+b\mathrm{\Lambda }\underset{k}{}L_k+p\mathrm{\Lambda }\underset{m}{}C_m$$
$`(1)`$
Here $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is some Hermitian operator of the system that couples to certain operators of the modes, $`L_k`$ and $`C_m`$. The parameters $`b`$ and $`p`$ are introduced to measure the coupling strength for the bath and pointer modes, respectively. They are assumed very large; the ideal measurement process corresponds to $`b,p\mathrm{}`$.

We note that the modes of $`P`$ and $`B`$ can be similar. The only difference between the bath and pointer modes is in how they interact with the “rest of the universe”: the bath is traced over (unobserved), whereas the pointer modes have their wave functions collapsed in a later step of the measurement process. Thus, we actually took the same coupling operator $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ for the bath and pointer. In fact, all the exact calculations reported in this work can be also carried out for different coupling operators $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_p`$, for the bath and pointer modes, provided they commute, $`[\mathrm{\Lambda }_b,\mathrm{\Lambda }_p]=0`$, so that they share a common set of eigenfunctions. The final wavefunction of the measured system, after the measurement, is in this set. Analytical calculation can be even extended to the case when the system’s Hamiltonian $`S`$ is retained in (1), provided all three operators, $`S,\mathrm{\Lambda }_b,\mathrm{\Lambda }_p`$, commute pairwise. The essential physical ingredients of the model are captured by the simpler choice (1).

We will later specify all the operators in (1) as the modes of the bosonic heat bath of Caldeira-Leggett type \[17,19-26\]. For now, however, let us keep our discussion general. We will assume that the system operator $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ has nondegenerate, discrete spectrum of eigenstates:

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }|\lambda =\lambda |\lambda $$
$`(2)`$
Some additional assumptions on the spectrum of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`S`$ will be encountered later. We also note that the requirement that the coupling parameters $`b`$ and $`p`$ are large may in practice be satisfied because, at the time of the measurement, the system’s Hamiltonian $`S`$ corresponds to slow or trivial dynamics.

Initially, at $`t=0`$, the quantum systems ($`S,B,P`$) and their modes are not correlated with each other. We assume that $`\rho `$ is the initial density matrix of the measured system. The initial state of each bath and pointer mode will be assumed thermalized, with $`\beta =1/(kT)`$ and the density matrices

$$\theta _k=\frac{e^{\beta B_k}}{\mathrm{Tr}_k\left(e^{\beta B_k}\right)}\sigma _m=\frac{e^{\beta P_m}}{\mathrm{Tr}_m\left(e^{\beta P_m}\right)}$$
$`(3)`$
We cannot offer any fundamental physical reason for having the initial bath and pointer mode states thermalized, especially for the pointer; this choice is made to allow exact solvability.

The density matrix of the system at the time $`t`$ is

$$R=e^{iHt/\mathrm{}}\rho \left(\underset{k}{}\theta _k\right)\left(\underset{m}{}\sigma _m\right)e^{iHt/\mathrm{}}$$
$`(4)`$
The bath is not probed and it can be traced over. The resulting reduced density matrix $`r`$ of the combined system $`S+P`$ will be represented by its matrix elements in the eigenbasis of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. These quantities are each an operator in the space of $`P`$:

$$r_{\lambda \lambda ^{}}=\lambda |\mathrm{Tr}_B(R)|\lambda ^{}$$
$`(5)`$
We now assume that operators in different spaces and of different modes commute. Then one can show that

$$r_{\lambda \lambda ^{}}=\rho _{\lambda \lambda ^{}}\left[\underset{m}{}e^{it\left(P_m+p\lambda C_m\right)/\mathrm{}}\sigma _me^{it\left(P_m+p\lambda ^{}C_m\right)/\mathrm{}}\right]\times $$

$$\left[\underset{k}{}\mathrm{Tr}_k\left\{e^{it\left(B_k+b\lambda L_k\right)/\mathrm{}}\theta _ke^{it\left(B_k+b\lambda ^{}L_k\right)/\mathrm{}}\right\}\right]$$
$`(6)`$
where $`\rho _{\lambda \lambda ^{}}=\lambda |\rho |\lambda ^{}`$. This result involves products of $`P`$-space operators and traces over $`B`$-space operators which are all single-mode. Therefore, analytical calculations are possible for some choices of the Hamiltonian (1). The observable $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ can be kept general.

The role of the product of traces over the modes of the bath in (6) is to induce decoherence which is recognized as essential for the measurement process, e.g., . At the time $`t`$, the absolute value of this product should approach $`\delta _{\lambda \lambda ^{}}`$ in the limit of large $`b`$. Let us now assume that the bath is bosonic. The Hamiltonian of each mode is then $`\mathrm{}\omega _ka_k^{}a_k`$, where for simplicity we shifted the zero of the oscillator energy to the ground state. The coupling operator $`L_k`$ is usually selected as $`L_k=g_k^{}a_k+g_ka_k^{}`$. For simplicity, though, we will assume that the coefficients $`g_k`$ are real:

$$B_k=\mathrm{}\omega _ka_k^{}a_kL_k=g_k\left(a_k+a_k^{}\right)$$
$`(7)`$
For example, for radiation field in a unit volume, coupled to an atom , the coupling is via a linear combination of the operators $`(a_k+a_k^{})/\sqrt{\omega _k}`$ and $`i(a_ka_k^{})/\sqrt{\omega _k}`$. For a spatial oscillator, these are proportional to position and momentum, respectively. Our calculations can be extended to have an imaginary part of $`g_k`$ which adds interaction with momentum.

The product of traces in (6) can be calculated by coherent-state or operator-identity techniques \[8-10\]. Here and below we only list the results of such calculations which are usually quite cumbersome:

$$\underset{k}{}\mathrm{Tr}_k\{\mathrm{}\}=\mathrm{exp}\left\{2b^2\left(\lambda \lambda ^{}\right)^2\mathrm{\Gamma }(t)+ib^2\left[\lambda ^2(\lambda ^{})^2\right]\gamma (t)\right\}$$
$`(8)`$
$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(t)=\underset{k}{}(\mathrm{}\omega _k)^2g_k^2\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{\omega _kt}{2}\mathrm{coth}\frac{\mathrm{}\beta \omega _k}{2}$$
$`(9)`$
Explicit form of $`\gamma (t)`$ is also known .

In the continuum limit of many modes, the density of the bosonic bath states in unit volume, $`D(\omega )`$, and the Debye cutoff with frequency, $`\omega _D`$, are introduced  to get

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(t)=\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑\omega \frac{D(\omega )g^2(\omega )}{(\mathrm{}\omega )^2}e^{\omega /\omega _D}\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{\omega t}{2}\mathrm{coth}\frac{\mathrm{}\beta \omega }{2}$$
$`(10)`$
Let us consider the popular choice termed Ohmic dissipation , motivated by atomic-physics  and solid-state applications , corresponding to

$$D(\omega )g^2(\omega )=\mathrm{\Omega }\omega $$
$`(11)`$
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is a constant. Other powers of $`\omega `$ have also been considered, e.g., . In studies of decoherence \[8-11\] for large times $`t`$, for models without strong coupling, not all the choices of $`D(\omega )g^2(\omega )`$ lead to complete decoherence  because $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(t)`$ must actually diverge to $`+\mathrm{}`$ for $`t\mathrm{}\beta `$, as happens for the choice (11).

Let us assume that the energy gaps of $`S`$ are bounded so that there exists a well defined time scale $`\mathrm{}/\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ of the evolution of the system under $`S`$. There is also the time scale $`1/\omega _D`$ set by the frequency cutoff assumed for the interactions. The thermal time scale is $`\mathrm{}\beta `$. The only real limitation on the duration of measurement is that $`t`$ must be less then $`\mathrm{}/\mathrm{\Delta }S`$. In applications, typically  one can assume that $`1/\omega _D\mathrm{}/\mathrm{\Delta }S`$. Furthermore, it is customary to assume that the temperature is low ,

$$t\mathrm{and}1/\omega _D\mathrm{}/\mathrm{\Delta }S\mathrm{}\beta $$
$`(12)`$
In the limit of large $`\mathrm{}\beta `$, the absolute value of (8) reduces to

$$\mathrm{Abs}\left(\underset{k}{}\mathrm{Tr}_k\{\mathrm{}\}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2\mathrm{}^2}b^2\left(\lambda \lambda ^{}\right)^2\mathrm{ln}[1+(\omega _Dt)^2]\right\}$$
$`(13)`$
In order to achieve effective decoherence, the product $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda )^2b^2\mathrm{ln}[1+(\omega _Dt)^2]`$ must be large. The present approach only applies to operators $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ with nonzero scale of the smallest spectral gaps, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda `$.

We note that the decoherence property needed for the measurement process will be obtained for nearly any well-behaved choice of $`D(\omega )g^2(\omega )`$ because we can rely on the value of $`b`$ being large rather than on the properties of the function $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(t)`$. If $`b`$ can be large enough, very short measurement times are possible. However, it may be advisable to use measurement times $`1/\omega _Dt\mathrm{}/\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ to get the extra amplification factor $`\mathrm{ln}(\omega _Dt)`$ and allow for fuller decoherence and less sensitivity to the value of $`t`$ in the pointer part of the dynamics, to be addressed shortly. We notice, furthermore, that the assumption of a large number of modes is important for monotonic decay of the absolute value of (8) in decoherence studies \[8-11\], where irreversibility is obtained only in the limit of infinite number of modes. In our case, it can be shown that such a continuum limit allows to extend the possible measurement times from $`t1/\omega _D`$ to $`1/\omega _Dt\mathrm{}/\mathrm{\Delta }S`$.

Consider the reduced density matrix $`r`$ of $`S+P`$, see (6). It becomes diagonal in $`|\lambda `$, at the time $`t`$, because all the nondiagonal elements are small,

$$r=\underset{\lambda }{}|\lambda \lambda |\rho _{\lambda \lambda }\underset{m}{}e^{it\left(P_m+p\lambda C_m\right)/\mathrm{}}\sigma _me^{it\left(P_m+p\lambda C_m\right)/\mathrm{}}$$
$`(14)`$
Thus, the described stage of the measurement process yields the density matrix that can be interpreted as describing a statistically distributed system, without quantum correlations. This, however, is only meaningful within the ensemble interpretation of quantum mechanics.

For a single system plus device, coupling to the rest of the universe is presumably needed (this problem is not fully understood in our opinion, see ) for that system to be left in one of the eigenstates $`|\lambda `$, with probability $`\rho _{\lambda \lambda }`$. After the measurement interaction is switched off at $`t`$, the pointer coupled to that system will carry information on the value of $`\lambda `$. This information is “amplified,” owing to the large parameter $`p`$ in the interaction.

We note that one of the roles of the pointer having many modes, many of which can be identical and noninteracting, is to allow it (the pointer only) to still be treated in the ensemble, density matrix description, even if we focus on the later stages of the measurement when the wave functions of a single measured system and of each pointer mode are already collapsed. This pointer density matrix can be read off (14). This aspect is new and it may provide a useful hint on how to set up the treatment of the full quantum-measurement process description.

Another such hint is provided by the fact that, as will be shown shortly, the changes in the expectation values of some observables of the pointer retain amplified information on the system’s eigenstate. So, coupling to the rest of the universe that leads to the completion of the measurement process, should involve such an observable of the pointer. Eventually, the information in the pointer, perhaps after several steps of amplification, should be available for probe by interactions with classical devices.

At time $`t=0`$, expectation values of various operators of the pointer will have their initial values. These values will be different at the time $`t`$ of the measurement owing to the interaction with the measured system. It is expected that the large coupling parameter $`p`$ will yield large changes in expectation values of the pointer quantities. This does not apply equally to all operators in the $`P`$-space. Let us begin with the simplest choice: the Hamiltonian $`\underset{m}{}P_m`$ of the pointer.

We will assume that the pointer is described by the bosonic heat bath and, for simplicity, use the same notation for the pointer modes as that used for the bath modes. The assumption that the pointer modes are initially thermalized, see (3), was not used thus far. While it allows exact analytical calculations, it is not essential: the effective density matrix describing the pointer modes at the time $`t`$, for the system’s state $`\lambda `$, will retain amplified information on the value of $`\lambda `$ for general initial states of the pointer.

This effective density matrix is the product over the $`P`$-modes in (14). For the “thermal” $`\sigma _m`$ from (3), the expectation value of the pointer energy $`E_P`$ can be calculated from

$$E_P_\lambda \mathrm{Tr}_P\left(e^{\mathrm{}\beta _s\omega _sa_s^{}a_s}\right)=\mathrm{Tr}_P\{\left(\underset{m}{}\mathrm{}\omega _ma_m^{}a_m\right)\times $$
$`(15)`$
$$\underset{n}{}\left[e^{it[\omega _na_n^{}a_n+p\lambda g_n(a_n+a_n^{})]/\mathrm{}}\left(e^{\mathrm{}\beta _k\omega _ka_k^{}a_k}\right)e^{it[\omega _na_n^{}a_n+p\lambda g_n(a_n+a_n^{})]/\mathrm{}}\right]\}.$$

The right-hand side can be reduced to calculations for individual modes. Operator identities can be then utilized to obtain the results

$$E_P_\lambda (t)=E_P(0)+\mathrm{\Delta }E_P_\lambda (t)$$
$`(16)`$
$$E_P(0)=\mathrm{}\underset{m}{}\omega _me^{\mathrm{}\beta \omega _m}\left(1e^{\mathrm{}\beta \omega _m}\right)^2$$
$`(17)`$
$$\mathrm{\Delta }E_P_\lambda (t)=\frac{4p^2\lambda ^2}{\mathrm{}}\underset{m}{}\frac{g_m^2}{\omega _m}\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\frac{\omega _mt}{2}\right)$$
$`(18)`$
For a model with Ohmic dissipation, the resulting integral, in the continuum limit, can be calculated to yield

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E_P_\lambda (t)=\frac{2\mathrm{\Omega }\omega _D\lambda ^2p^2}{\mathrm{}}\frac{(\omega _Dt)^2}{1+(\omega _Dt)^2}$$
$`(19)`$
which should be compared to the exponent in (13). The energy will be an indicator of the amplified value of the square of $`\lambda `$, provided $`p`$ is large. Furthermore, we see here the advantage of larger measurement times, $`t1/\omega _D`$. The change in the energy then reaches saturation. After the time $`t`$, when the interaction is switched off, the energy of the pointer will be conserved.

Let us consider the expectation value of the following Hermitian operator of the pointer:

$$X=\underset{m}{}C_m=\underset{m}{}g_m(a_m+a_m^{})$$
$`(20)`$
For an atom in a field, $`X`$ is related to the electromagnetic field operators . One can show that $`X_P(0)=0`$ and

$$\mathrm{\Delta }X_P_\lambda (t)=X_P_\lambda (t)=\frac{4p\lambda }{\mathrm{}}\underset{m}{}\frac{g_m^2}{\omega _m}\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\frac{\omega _mt}{2}\right)$$
$`(21)`$
$$=\frac{2\mathrm{\Omega }\omega _D\lambda p}{\mathrm{}}\frac{(\omega _Dt)^2}{1+(\omega _Dt)^2}$$

The change in the expectation value of $`X`$ is linear in $`\lambda `$. However, this operator is not conserved. One can show that after the time $`t`$ its expectation value decays to zero for times $`t+𝒪(1/\omega _D)`$.

We note that by referring to “unit volume” we have avoided the discussion of the “extensivity” of various quantities. For example, the initial energy $`E_P(0)`$ is obviously proportional to the system volume, $`V`$. However, the change $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_P_\lambda (t)`$ will not be extensive; typically, $`g^2(\omega )1/V`$, $`D(\omega )V`$. Thus, while the amplification in our measurement process can involve a numerically large factor, the changes in the quantities of the pointer will be multiples of microscopic values. Multi-stage amplification, or huge coupling parameter $`p`$, would be needed for the information in the pointer to become truly “extensive” macroscopically.

In practice, there will be probably two types of pointer involved in a multistage measurement process. Some pointers will consist of many noninteracting modes. These pointers carry the information, stored in a density matrix rather than a wave function of a single system. The latter transference hopefully makes the wavefunction collapse and transfer of the stored information to the macroscopic level less “mysterious and traumatic.” The second type of pointer will involve strongly interacting modes and play the role of an amplifier by utilizing the many-body collective behavior of the coupled modes (phase-transition style). Its role will be to alleviate the artificial requirement for large mode-to-system coupling parameters encountered in our model.

In summary, we described the first stage of a measurement process. It involves decoherence due to a bath and transfer of information to a large system (pointer) via strong interaction over a short period of time. The pointer itself need not be coupled to the internal bath. While we do not offer a solution to the foundation-of-quantum-mechanics wave-function collapse problem , our results do provide two interesting observations.

Firstly, the pointer operator “probed” by the rest of the universe during the wave-function collapse stage, may be in part determined not only by how the pointer modes are coupled to the external bath \[3-7\], but also by the amplification capacity of that operator in the first stage of the process, as illustrated by our calculations.

Secondly, for a single system (rather then an ensemble), the multiplicity of the (noninteracting) pointer modes might allow the pointer to be treated within the density matrix formalism even after the system and each pointer-mode wave functions were collapsed. Since it is the information in the pointer that is passed on, this observation might seem to resolve part of the measurement puzzle. Specifically, it might suggest why only those density matrices entering (14) are selected for the pointer: they carry classical (large, different from other values) information in expectation values, rather than quantum-mechanical superposition. However, presumably  only a full description of the interaction of the external world with the system $`S+P`$ can explain the wavefunction collapse of $`S`$.

We acknowledge helpful discussions with Professor L. S. Schulman. This research has been supported by the US Army Research Office under grant DAAD 19-99-1-0342.

References

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7. M. Gell-Mann and J. B. Hartle, in Quantum Classical Correspondence: The 4th Drexel Symposium on Quantum Nonintegrability, ed. by D. H. Feng and B. L. Hu (International Press, Cambridge, MA, 1997) p. 3.

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14. A. J. Leggett, in Percolation, Localization and Superconductivity, NATO ASI Series B: Physics, ed. by A. M. Goldman and S. A. Wolf (Plenum, NY, 1984), Vol. 109, p. 1.

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text:
# Solvable model of a polymer in random media with long ranged disorder correlations

## I Introduction

The behavior of polymer chains in random media is a well studied problem \[1-6\] that has applications in diverse fields. Besides the polymers themselves this problem is directly related to the statistical mechanics of a quantum particle in a random potential , the behavior of flux lines in superconductors in the presence of columnar defects , and the problem of diffusion in a random catalytic environment . Despite the volume of work that has been done on these problems there are still many unanswered questions. Most of the previous work (with the exception of directed polymers ) concentrated on disorder with short ranged correlations. In this paper we consider a model with long ranged (quadratic) correlations of the random potential that can serve as a laboratory (toy model) since it can be solved exactly using the replica method . Since some people are somewhat wary of the $`n0`$ limit used in replica calculations, we also solve the model numerically in one dimension and obtain an excellent agreement with the analytical solution. More importantly, the numerical solution enables us to explore the crossover from long ranged to short ranged correlations of the disorder and obtain a coherent picture of the behavior of a Gaussian chain in a random medium.

The simplest model of a polymer chain in random media is a Gaussian (flexible) chain  in a medium of fixed random obstacles . In this paper we do not include a self-avoiding interaction. This model can be described by the Hamiltonian

$$H=_0^L𝑑u\left[\frac{M}{2}\left(\frac{d𝐑(u)}{du}\right)^2+\frac{\mu }{2}𝐑^2(u)+V\left(𝐑(u)\right)\right],$$
(1)
where $`𝐑(u)`$ is the $`d`$ dimensional position vector of a point on the polymer at arc-length $`u(0uL)`$, and where $`L`$ is the contour length of the chain. The medium of random obstacles is described by a random potential $`V(𝐑)`$ that is taken from a Gaussian distribution that satisfies

$$V(𝐑)=0,V(𝐑)V(𝐑^{})=f\left((𝐑𝐑^{})^2\right).$$
(2)
The harmonic term in the Hamiltonian is included to mimic the effects of finite volume. This is important to ensure that the model is well defined, since it turns out that certain equilibrium properties of the polymer diverge in the infinite volume limit $`(\mu 0)`$. The function $`f`$ characterizes the correlations of the random potential, and will depend on the particular problem at hand. The parameter $`M`$ is inversely proportional to $`\beta b^2`$, where $`\beta =(k_BT)^1`$, and where $`b`$ is the Khun bond step.

Once we have defined the Hamiltonian for any chain configuration $`𝐑(u)`$, we can write the partition sum (Green’s function) for the set of paths of length $`L`$ that go from $`𝐑`$ to $`𝐑^{}`$ as

$$Z(𝐑,𝐑^{};L)=_{𝐑(0)=𝐑}^{𝐑(L)=𝐑^{}}[d𝐑(u)]\mathrm{exp}(\beta H).$$
(3)
All the statistical properties of the polymer will depend on the partition sum. For instance, we can calculate the averaged mean squared displacement of the far end of a polymer with one end that is fixed at the origin. This is a measure of the wandering of a tethered polymer immersed in a random medium. This quantity can be written as

$$\overline{𝐑_T^2(L)}=\overline{\left(\frac{𝑑\mathrm{𝐑𝐑}^2Z(\mathrm{𝟎},𝐑;L)}{𝑑𝐑Z(\mathrm{𝟎},𝐑;L)}\right)},$$
(4)
where the overbar stands for the average of the ratio over the realizations of the random potential. This average is referred to as a quenched average, as opposed to an annealed average, where the numerator and denominator are averaged independently. For a polymer with one end fixed a typical conformation in a random medium is that of a tadpole. The head of the polymer wanders far from the origin to find a region of favorable potential and then the remaining chain settles itself in that region. This is at least what is believed to happen when the disorder has short ranged correlations . On the other hand if the chain is not anchored but both ends are free to move, the head to tail mean squared displacement is given by

$$\overline{𝐑_F^2(L)}=\overline{\left(\frac{𝑑𝐑𝑑𝐑^{}(𝐑𝐑^{})^2Z(𝐑,𝐑^{};L)}{𝑑𝐑𝑑𝐑^{}Z(𝐑,𝐑^{};L)}\right)}.$$
(5)
In this case the chain can move as a whole to find a favorable environment in the random medium.

In order to compute the quenched average over the random potential we apply the replica method. We first introduce $`n`$-copies of the system and average over the random potential to get

$$Z_n(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a^{}\};L)=\overline{Z(𝐑_1,𝐑_1^{};L)\mathrm{}Z(𝐑_n,𝐑_n^{};L)}=_{𝐑_a(0)=𝐑_a}^{𝐑_a(L)=𝐑_a^{}}\underset{a=1}{\overset{n}{}}[d𝐑_a]\mathrm{exp}(\beta H_n),$$
(6)
where

$`H_n={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _0^L}𝑑u{\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}\left[M\left({\displaystyle \frac{d𝐑_a(u)}{du}}\right)^2+\mu 𝐑_a^2(u)\right]`$ (7)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{2}}{\displaystyle _0^L}𝑑u{\displaystyle _0^L}𝑑u^{}{\displaystyle \underset{ab}{}}f\left((𝐑_a(u)𝐑_b(u^{}))^2\right).`$ (8)
The averaged equilibrium properties of the polymer can now be written in terms of the replicated partition sum $`Z_n(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a\};L)`$. For instance, the mean squared displacement defined in Eq. (4) can be written in as

$$\overline{𝐑_T^2(L)}=\underset{n0}{lim}\frac{𝑑𝐑_1\mathrm{}𝑑𝐑_n𝐑_1^2Z_n(\{\mathrm{𝟎}\},\{𝐑_a\};L)}{𝑑𝐑_1\mathrm{}𝑑𝐑_nZ_n(\{\mathrm{𝟎}\},\{𝐑_a\};L)},$$
(9)
and similarly

$$\overline{𝐑_F^2(L)}=\underset{n0}{lim}\frac{d𝐑_ad𝐑_a^{}\left(𝐑_1𝐑_1^{}\right)^2Z_n(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a^{}\};L)}{d𝐑_ad𝐑_{}^{}{}_{a}{}^{}Z_n(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a^{}\};L)}.$$
(10)
Thus, the averaged equilibrium properties of the polymer can be extracted from an $`n`$-body problem by taking the $`n0`$ limit at the end. This limit has to be taken with care, by solving the problem analytically for general $`n`$, before taking the limit of $`n0`$.

We now proceed to introduce our toy model that can be exactly solved using the replica method and which also lends itself to an accurate numerical solution. This is the case when a Gaussian polymer chain is immersed in a random medium that has very long range spatial correlations. In particular, we take the correlation function to be of the form

$$V(𝐑)V(𝐑^{})=f\left((𝐑𝐑^{})^2\right)=g\left(1(𝐑𝐑^{})^2/\xi ^2\right),$$
(11)
where $`\xi `$ is chosen to be larger than the sample size, so that the correlation function is well defined (non-negative) over the entire sample. Since this model can be solved exactly using the replica method, we can compute all the important physical properties of the polymer chain, and then compare the exact analytical results with an alternative numerical solution (at $`d=1`$). Also, this model of long range correlations is interesting in its own right in that it may serve as a good approximation to any correlation function $`f`$ that is smooth and slowly decaying. Most cases investigated so far in the literature are concerned with disorder with short ranged correlations.

There are many properties of the polymer chain that can be exactly computed. In addition to $`\overline{𝐑_T^2(L)}`$ and $`\overline{𝐑_F^2(L)}`$ we will compute two other quantities. First, for a polymer loop of arc-length $`L`$, we will compute the quantity

$$C(l)=\frac{1}{d}\overline{𝐑(l)𝐑(0)^2}=\frac{1}{d}\overline{\left(\frac{𝑑𝐑𝑑𝐑^{}(𝐑^{}𝐑)^2Z(𝐑,𝐑^{};Ll)Z(𝐑^{},𝐑;l)}{𝑑𝐑Z(𝐑,𝐑;L)}\right)},$$
(12)
in the limit $`Ll`$. This is a measure of the average fluctuations of a chain segment of arc-length $`l`$. Since in this case the chain is not anchored, this quantity is in some respect similar to $`\overline{𝐑_F^2(L)}`$. Yet another quantity of interest is

$$\overline{𝐑_Q^2(L)}=\overline{\left(\frac{𝑑\mathrm{𝐑𝐑}^2Z(𝐑,𝐑;L)}{𝑑𝐑Z(𝐑,𝐑;L)}\right)},$$
(13)
which has a more direct application to the related problem of a quantum particle in a random potential . The reason for this is that the partition sum of a polymer chain can be mapped to the density matrix of a quantum particle. The mapping  is given by

$$\beta 1/\mathrm{},L\beta \mathrm{}.$$
(14)
Then $`\rho (R,R^{};\beta )=Z(R,R^{};L=\beta \mathrm{},\beta =1/\mathrm{})`$ is the density matrix of a quantum particle at inverse temperature $`\beta `$. Note that the variable $`u`$ is now interpreted as the Trotter (imaginary) time, and $`M`$ as the mass of the quantum particle. Under this mapping $`\overline{𝐑_Q^2(L)}`$ can be interpreted as the average mean squared displacement of a quantum particle in a random plus harmonic potential.

The paper is organized as follows: In Sec. II we outline the exact analytical solution for various quantities relevant to a polymer chain. In the next section we present the details of the numerical approach to the problem. In Sec. IV we compare the analytical and numerical results and comment on the physical implications of our results. Concluding remarks are offered in Sec. V.

## II The analytical solution

We start with the case when one end point is fixed. The analytical calculation is based on an exact evaluation of the replicated partition sum (6). For the correlation function $`f`$ that we are considering the replicated Hamiltonian is

$$H_n=\frac{1}{2}_0^L𝑑u\underset{a}{}\left[M\left(\frac{𝐑_a(u)}{u}\right)^2+\mu 𝐑_a^2(u)\right]+\beta \sigma _0^L𝑑u_0^L𝑑u^{}\underset{ab}{}(𝐑_a(u)𝐑_b(u^{}))^2,$$
(15)
where $`\sigma =g/2\xi ^2`$, and where we have dropped the constant part of the function $`f`$ since it only contributes an unimportant normalization factor. After expanding the quadratic term and simplifying the double integral we get the replicated Hamiltonian

$$H_n=\frac{1}{2}_0^L𝑑u\underset{a}{}\left[M\left(\frac{𝐑_a(u)}{u}\right)^2+(\mu +4n\beta \sigma L)𝐑_a^2(u)\right]2\beta \sigma \left(\underset{a}{}_0^L𝑑u𝐑_a(u)\right)^2.$$
(16)
Now, using the Gaussian transformation

$$e^{𝐐^2/2}=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^{d/2}}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑𝝀e^{(𝝀^2/2𝐐𝝀)}$$
(17)
and letting

$$𝐐=2\beta \sqrt{\sigma }\left(\underset{a}{}_0^L𝑑u𝐑_a(u)\right),$$
(18)
we can write the replicated partition sum as

$$Z_n(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a^{}\};L)=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^{d/2}}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑𝝀e^{𝝀^2/2}\underset{a=1}{\overset{n}{}}_{𝐑_a(0)=𝐑_a}^{𝐑_a(L)=𝐑_a^{}}[d𝐑_a]e^{\beta H_a(𝝀)},$$
(19)
where

$$H_a(𝝀)=_0^L𝑑u\left[\frac{M}{2}\left(\frac{d𝐑_a(u)}{du}\right)^2+\frac{\mu ^{}}{2}𝐑_a^2(u)+2\sqrt{\sigma }𝝀𝐑_a(u)\right],$$
(20)
and where $`\mu ^{}=\mu +4n\beta \sigma L`$. The path integrals can now be evaluated directly using well known results for quadratic Hamiltonians. The details of the calculation are given in the Appendix. Once the partition sum is known we can directly evaluate the right hand side of Eq. (9) by taking $`n0`$ at the very end. The result is

$$\overline{𝐑_T^2(L)}=\frac{d}{\beta }\sqrt{\frac{1}{M\mu }}\mathrm{tanh}\left(\sqrt{\frac{\mu }{M}}L\right)+\frac{4\sigma d}{\mu ^2}\left(1\frac{1}{\mathrm{cosh}\left(\sqrt{\frac{\mu }{M}}L\right)}\right)^2,$$
(21)
We can also compute the averaged mean displacement square $`\overline{𝐑_T(L)^2}`$ (see Appendix). We find that

$$\overline{𝐑_T(L)^2}=\frac{4\sigma d}{\mu ^2}\left(1\frac{1}{\mathrm{cosh}\left(\sqrt{\frac{\mu }{M}}L\right)}\right)^2.$$
(22)
This implies that the displacement from the average is

$$\overline{𝐑_T^2(L)𝐑_T(L)^2}=\frac{d}{\beta }\sqrt{\frac{1}{M\mu }}\mathrm{tanh}\left(\sqrt{\frac{\mu }{M}}L\right),$$
(23)
which is independent of disorder. We will discuss the physical implications of these results in a later section.

Considering now a chain that is free to move we calculate (see Appendix for details) the quantity $`\overline{𝐑_F^2(L)}`$ using Eq. (10). The result is

$$\overline{𝐑_F^2(L)}=\frac{2d}{\beta \sqrt{M\mu }}\frac{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\sqrt{\frac{\mu }{M}}L\right)}{\left(\mathrm{cosh}\left(\sqrt{\frac{\mu }{M}}L\right)+1\right)},$$
(24)
which is independent of disorder and in the limit of $`\mu 0`$ behaves like $`dL/\beta M`$, i.e. like a free chain.

The quantity $`\overline{𝐑_Q^2(L)}`$ can also be computed exactly from the expression

$$\overline{𝐑_Q^2(L)}=\underset{n0}{lim}\frac{𝑑𝐑_1\mathrm{}𝑑𝐑_n𝐑_1^2Z_n(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a\};L)}{𝑑𝐑_1\mathrm{}𝑑𝐑_nZ_n(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a\};L)}.$$
(25)
Details are given in the Appendix. However, in this case it is also possible to carry out the computation in an alternative way by taking advantage of the periodic boundary conditions of the closed loop. This provides for a further check on the result and is also included for instructional purposes. Using the Fourier space variables

$$𝐑_a(\omega )=(1/\sqrt{L})_0^L𝑑u𝐑_a(u)e^{i\omega u},$$

we can write the propagator associated with $`\beta H_n`$ as

$`\beta G_{ab}(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{d}}𝐑_a(\omega )𝐑_b(\omega )`$ (26)
$`=`$ $`\left\{\left(M\omega ^2+\mu +4n\beta \sigma L\right)𝐈4\beta \sigma L\delta _{\omega ,0}\right\}_{ab}^1,`$ (27)
where $`\omega `$ is restricted to the discrete values

$$\omega _m=\frac{2\pi }{L}m,m=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}.$$
(28)
After inverting the $`n\times n`$ matrix and taking the $`n0`$, we find

$$\beta G_{ab}(\omega =0)=\frac{\delta _{ab}}{\mu }+\frac{4\beta \sigma L}{\mu ^2},$$
(29)
$$\beta G_{ab}(\omega 0)=\frac{\delta _{ab}}{M\omega ^2+\mu }.$$
(30)
Then, using the relation

$$𝐑_a^2(L)=\frac{d}{L}\underset{\omega }{}G_{aa}(\omega ),$$
(31)
we find that

$$\overline{𝐑_Q^2(L)}=\frac{1}{n}\underset{a=1}{\overset{n}{}}𝐑_a^2(L)=\frac{4\sigma d}{\mu ^2}+\frac{d}{2\beta \sqrt{M\mu }}\mathrm{coth}\left(\sqrt{\frac{\mu }{M}}\frac{L}{2}\right),$$
(32)
which implies that the only effect of the disorder is to shift the zero disorder result by a constant factor. Next, we compute the quantity $`\overline{𝐑_Q(L)^2}`$. We find that

$`\overline{𝐑_Q(L)^2}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n(n1)}}{\displaystyle \underset{ab}{\overset{n}{}}}𝐑_a(L)𝐑_b(L)`$ (33)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{Ln(n1)}}{\displaystyle \underset{ab}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\omega }{}}G_{ab}(\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{4\sigma d}{\mu ^2}},`$ (34)
which again implies that the deviation from the average $`\overline{𝐑_Q^2(L)𝐑_Q(L)^2}`$ is independent of disorder.

Finally, we compute the quantity $`C(l)`$, which was defined in Eq. (12). We use,

$`C(l)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{nd}}{\displaystyle \underset{a=1}{\overset{n}{}}}\left(𝐑_a(l)𝐑_a(0)\right)^2`$ (35)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{nL}}{\displaystyle \underset{a=1}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\omega }{}}G_{aa}(\omega )(1e^{i\omega l})={\displaystyle \frac{2}{\beta L}}{\displaystyle \underset{\omega 0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1e^{i\omega l}}{M\omega ^2+\mu }},`$ (36)
which for large $`L`$ yields the expression

$$C(l)=\frac{1}{\beta \sqrt{M\mu }}(1\mathrm{exp}(l\sqrt{\mu /M}).$$
(37)
So we find that $`C(l)`$ is independent of the disorder and is the same as that of a free chain.

## III Numerical Procedure

In order to check the validity of the analytical solution we will have to numerically compute the quenched average of certain physical properties of the polymer. This is a rather computationally intensive task because of the difficulty of evaluating the partition sum, and also because all quantities will then have to be averaged over many realizations of the random potential. In this paper we will only concentrate on the case $`d=1`$. Although this does not correspond to a physical polymer ($`d=3`$) we will still be able to check the validity of our analytical results for the special case $`d=1`$. In the context of the quantum particle in a random potential this case corresponds to a particle in a one dimensional random potential.

We evaluate the path integral (3) numerically by mapping it to the associated Schrödinger equation. In dimension $`d=1`$ this mapping (see Ref.  Eqs. (3.12)-(3.18)) is given by

$$Z(R,R^{};L)=_{R(0)=R^{}}^{R(L)=R}[dR(u)]\mathrm{exp}\left(\beta H[R(u)]\right)=R|\mathrm{exp}(\beta L\widehat{H})|R^{},$$
(38)
where

$$\widehat{H}=\frac{1}{2M\beta ^2}\frac{^2}{\widehat{R}^2}+\frac{\mu }{2}\widehat{R}^2+V(\widehat{R}).$$
(39)
We compute the matrix element by expanding it in terms of the energy eigenstates of $`\widehat{H}`$

$$R|\mathrm{exp}(\beta L\widehat{H})|R^{}=\underset{n}{}\mathrm{exp}(\beta LE_n)\mathrm{\Phi }_n(R)^{}\mathrm{\Phi }_n(R^{}).$$
(40)
In order to compute the eigenvalues and eigenvectors numerically we solve the Schördinger equation on a one dimensional lattice of $`N`$ sites . The lattice Hamiltonian is then an $`N\times N`$ matrix with matrix elements given by

$$H_{ij}=\frac{1}{2M\beta ^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2}\left(\delta _{i,j+1}+\delta _{i+1,j}\right)+\left(\frac{\mu }{2}\mathrm{\Delta }^2(iN/2)^2+V(i)\right)\delta _{i,j}$$
(41)
where the lattice spacing is $`\mathrm{\Delta }=S/N`$, and where $`S`$ is the system size. Since we are interested in the continuum limit $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ will be kept small. Note that the index $`i`$ corresponds to the position $`R_i=\mathrm{\Delta }i`$. The eigenvalues and eigenvectors can now be found directly by diagonalizing the matrix using a standard numerical routine . Once these are known we can construct the partition sum at any value of $`L`$ using Eq. (40).

The random potential $`V(R)`$ is generated by first generating a Gaussian correlated random potential $`V_\xi (R)`$ that satisfies

$$V_\xi (R)V_\xi (R^{})\mathrm{exp}\left((RR^{})^2/\xi ^2\right).$$
(42)
Since we are making a lattice approximation we need a sequence of $`N`$ numbers $`\{V_\xi (i)\}_{i=1,..,N}`$ that obey $`V_\xi (i)V_\xi (i+l)G(l)`$, where in this case $`G(l)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\mathrm{\Delta }^2l^2/\xi ^2\right)`$. These numbers will then be placed on the $`N`$ lattice sites in the given order. To generate such numbers we use a method described in reference . The procedure is to first generate a sequence of $`N`$ uncorrelated random numbers $`\{U(i)\}`$ with a Gaussian distribution. These numbers are then fast Fourier transformed, using a standard numerical routine , to yield the sequence $`\{\stackrel{~}{U}(i)\}`$. Next, we calculate the $`N`$ numbers defined by $`\stackrel{~}{W}(i)=\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{G}(i)}\stackrel{~}{U}(i)`$, where $`\stackrel{~}{G}(i)`$ is defined as the Fourier transform of the correlation function $`G(i)`$. Finally, taking the inverse Fourier transform of the sequence $`\{\stackrel{~}{W}(i)\}`$, yields $`\{W(i)\}`$, the sequence with the desired correlation function $`G(i)`$. Now, in order to generate quadratic correlations we choose $`\xi `$ such that the Gaussian correlation function is well approximated by its leading quadratic term over the range of the system size. The approximate condition for this to hold is that $`\xi /S1/\sqrt{2}`$. In this way we generate a well defined set of random numbers which obey approximately the correlation function given in Eq. (11).

In Fig. 1 we plot a correlation function that is generated by the above method. On the same graph we plot the corresponding quadratic approximation. Notice that in this case when $`\left|RS/2\right|10`$ the quadratic approximation begins to deviate from the generated correlation function. This discrepancy turns out to be unimportant as long the quantities that are numerically computed (such as end to end distance) do not exceed this range of validity.

In order to reduce errors due to the finite size of the lattice we found it useful to take our sample of random numbers from a set which was about five times $`N`$. In all cases we tested the reliability of the samples by directly computing the correlation function and comparing to the analytical expression for the correlation function given by Eq. (42).

## IV Results and Discussion

We discretized the Schrödinger equation on a lattice of size $`N=200`$. Once the eigenvalues and eigenvectors are known then we can approximate, for instance the mean squared displacement, for each random sample. We then average over the samples to get an approximation to the quenched average. For simplicity we set $`M=1/2`$ and $`\beta =1`$ for all cases.

In Fig. 2 we graph the mean squared displacement with one endpoint fixed as a function of $`L`$. We do this for two different number of samples in order to check convergence towards the corresponding analytical solution. Note that in the labels of the plots the average over the disorder is denoted by a second set of brackets rather than an overbar. In Fig. 3 we graph $`\overline{R_T(L)^2}`$ as a function of $`L`$. We use the same parameters as in Fig. 2. It is clear from the graphs that the numerical results are consistent with the exact curve. As the number of the samples is increased the numerical curves get closer to the analytical solution. In Fig. 4 we plot $`\overline{R_F^2(L)}`$ vs. $`L`$. This quantity is computed numerically using the expression given in Eq. (5). We found that the numerical results were extremely close to the analytical prediction after averaging over only $`200`$ samples.

We now turn our attention to the quantity $`\overline{R_Q^2(L)}`$, which was discussed in the introduction. In Fig. 5. we graph $`\overline{R_Q^2(L)}`$ vs. $`L`$. In order to visualize the predicted shift in Eq. (32) we include the exact solution of the zero disorder case. We use the same parameters as the previous figures.

Again, we find close agreement between the computational results and the analytical solution. The shift due to the disorder is clearly evident and is very close to the predicted value. In Fig. 6 we plot $`\overline{R_Q(L)^2}`$ vs. $`L`$ and compare with a plot of the analytical solution in Eq. (34). For small $`L`$ there appears to be a discrepancy between the data and the analytical solution, whereas for larger $`L`$ the two curves are very close. This is due to the fact that the random potential is generated on a grid with grid size of 0.2. Thus for L shorter than 0.2 the particle can not see the random potential and $`\overline{R_Q(L)^2}`$ vs. $`L`$ should average to zero. Indeed the significant deviation occurs on this length scale.

Finally, we turn our attention to the quantity $`C(l)`$. It was evaluated numerically from the expression given in Eq. (12). In Fig. 7 we plot $`C(l)`$ vs. $`l`$ with $`L`$ large and fixed.

It is clear from the graphs that the numerical solutions are consistent with the exact analytical solution. As expected, as the number of samples is increased the numerical results get closer and closer to the exact curve. Based on these results we can safely conclude that the replica calculation is indeed correct and does describe the averaged properties of the polymer.

It is interesting to study the infinite volume limit $`\mu 0`$. Here, the polymer does not see the confining harmonic potential and its properties are determined only by the random potential. Taking the $`\mu 0`$ limit the exact expressions simplify to

$$\overline{𝐑_T^2(L)}=\frac{d}{\beta M}L+\frac{d\sigma }{M^2}L^4,$$
(43)
$$\overline{𝐑_T^2(L)^2}=\frac{d\sigma }{M^2}L^4.$$
(44)
Notice that in the no disorder case $`(\sigma =0)`$ the later quantity is zero, but once the disorder is turned on it scales like $`L^4`$ with a coefficient that is independent of temperature. Also, Eq. (43) indicates that for small $`L`$ the polymer wanders diffusively but for larger $`L`$ it wanders much faster than diffusion. In Fig. 8 we plot $`\overline{R_T(L)^2}`$ vs. $`L`$ when $`\mu `$ is chosen to be very small. On the same graph we plot Eq. (44).

In Fig. 9 we plot $`\overline{R_T^2(L)R_T(L)^2}`$ vs. $`L`$. On the same graph we include the analytical prediction.

It is clear that the numerical results agree well with the analytical predictions. Also, from Eq. (32) we see that the quantity $`\overline{𝐑_Q^2(L)}`$ diverges as $`\mu 0`$. This implies that the boundary conditions on the chain are crucial in determining which quantities are well defined in the infinite volume limit.

The physical consequences of our results are surprising and may seem counter intuitive at first glance. The very long range correlations of the random potential lead to a very fast wandering of the free end of a tethered chain. However, the deviation from the average position $`\overline{𝐑_T^2(L)𝐑_T(L)^2}`$ does not depend on the random potential. Also, if both ends are free to move then the end to end distance $`\overline{𝐑_F^2(L)}`$ behaves as if there is no random potential. This behavior can make more sense if we study the nature of the random potential samples that satisfy the quadratic correlation. We find that the typical random potential (see Fig. 10) is smooth and slowly varying on short scales but contains peaks and valleys on scales close to the system size.

So as $`L`$ is increased the polymer has a greater tendency to be found in the deepest potential well in the sample, which, for large sample sizes, is on average located very far from the fixed end of the polymer. So for the case when one end is fixed we expect the end to end distance to grow very fast with $`L`$, as the bulk (center of mass) of the polymer moves far away from the fixed end. This behavior is the same as in the case of short range correlations , where the polymer will typically form a tadpole conformation with the tail tethered to the origin and the head far away in some region of low potential. On the other hand, when both ends are free the entire polymer will simply curl up in the region of low potential and the end to end distance should depend only on the local behavior of the random potential. Now, since the potential samples are smooth and slowly varying on short scales we do not expect the disorder to have much of an effect on the local behavior of the polymer. What is very interesting though is the fact that the chain that is free to move behaves as if the random potential has no effect at all. Similarly, the fluctuations around the average position in the case when one end is fixed turn out to be totally independent of disorder. This is expected to be a special feature of the quadratically correlated random potential, and is not likely to hold in the general case of long range correlations. See discussion below about the crossover to shorter ranged correlations of the disorder.

It is useful to compare our results with those for directed polymers. Here, the arc-length $`u`$ corresponds to the distance along the directed axis which is a fixed direction in real space, and the vector $`𝐑(u)`$ is the position of the directed line in the transverse hyper-plane. In that case the random potential is usually taken to depend on $`u`$ and satisfy

$$V(𝐑,u)V(𝐑^{},u^{})=\delta (uu^{})f\left((𝐑𝐑^{})^2\right),$$
(45)
i. e. the random potential is taken to be uncorrelated along the directed axis, unlike the situation described in Eqs. (1,2) were the random potential is independent of $`u`$. Parisi has shown  that if $`f`$ is quadratic, then the mean squared displacement of one end of the directed polymer satisfies $`\overline{𝐑_T^2(L)}L^3`$ . This is to be compared with the $`L^4`$ dependence that we have found for the case when the random potential is independent of $`u`$.

To explain the different scaling we employ a Flory-type argument similar to the argument used in  for directed polymers. Allowing for a rescaling of the arc-length variable $`u`$ by a scale $`\mathrm{}`$, i.e. $`u\mathrm{}u`$ and the position variables $`𝐑(u)\mathrm{}^\zeta 𝐑(\mathrm{}u)`$ we see that the random potential which satisfies Eq. (2) with a correlation function behaving in general like

$`f\left((𝐑𝐑^{})^2\right)const.{\displaystyle \frac{2\sigma }{1\alpha }}\left(𝐑𝐑^{}\right)^{2(1\alpha )},`$ (46)
scales like $`\mathrm{}^\lambda `$ with

$`2\lambda =\zeta 2(1\alpha )`$ (47)
The difference with directed polymers is that in that case one has to subtract a 1 from the right hand side of Eq. (47) because of the delta function in Eq (45). Now in a Flory argument one assumes that the two terms in the hamiltonian given in Eq. (1) scale the same way (here we consider only the case of $`\mu =0`$, since $`\mu 0`$ breaks scale invariance). Since the ’kinetic’ energy term scales like $`\mathrm{}^{2\zeta 2}`$, and this should be equal to $`\mathrm{}^\lambda `$, we see that

$`\zeta ={\displaystyle \frac{2}{1+\alpha }}.`$ (48)
Thus $`\overline{𝐑_T^2(L)}L^{4/(1+\alpha )}`$ as opposed to $`L^{3/(1+\alpha )}`$ for directed polymers. In the quadratic case $`\alpha =0`$, and we get the $`L^4`$ behavior we were looking for. Notice that we derived here a prediction for the behavior of $`\overline{𝐑_T^2(L)}`$ for the case of long ranged correlations of the disorder which are not quadratic but are characterized by a power law determined by the value of $`\alpha `$. Thus the power of $`L`$ will decrease for shorter ranged correlations than quadratic. It is interesting to assess the accuracy of the Flory argument in practice. In the function $`\overline{𝐑_T^2(L)𝐑_T(L)^2}`$ or in $`\overline{𝐑_F^2(L)}`$ the leading power of $`L`$ cancells out and one is left with a subleading $`L^1`$ behavior (for quadratic correlations).

Within this toy model it is interesting to compare the differences between the annealed and the quenched averages. The annealed average applies when the obstacles in the medium are randomly placed and mobile. In this case the replica trick is not necessary and the random potential can be averaged directly. Alternatively one can use the results obtained with $`Z_n`$ but instead of taking $`n`$ to 0, substituting $`n=1`$. We easily find that

$$\overline{𝐑_T^2(L)}=\frac{𝑑\mathrm{𝐑𝐑}^2\overline{Z(\mathrm{𝟎},𝐑,L)}}{𝑑𝐑\overline{Z(\mathrm{𝟎},𝐑,L)}}\frac{1}{\sqrt{\sigma L}},$$
(49)
when $`L`$ is large, and where we have taken the $`\mu 0`$ limit. So in an annealed medium with long range quadratic correlations a very long polymer chain will collapse around the tethered end. Similarly, we find that $`\overline{𝐑_F^2(L)}1/\sqrt{\sigma L}`$, and so if both ends are free then the polymer will collapse in the same way. This behavior is in stark contrast to the quenched case where the effects of the random medium is quite different.

For the case of short ranged correlations and a chain that is free to move one usually argues  that the annealed and quenched averages coincide in the infinite volume limit. This is due to the fact that the system can be divided into subregions, much larger than the chain, each containing a different realization of the potential. The moving chain can sample all of these and find a realization very similar to the one it induces around itself in the annealed case. But this argument does not apply to the case of long ranged correlations of the random potential, with the correlation length larger than the system size, since such a division to subregions will not yield independent realizations.

It will be interesting to investigate how the physical properties that we have found change as we move towards the regime of short range correlations. In our model we can control the correlation length by varying the parameter $`\xi `$ in Eq. (42) i.e. in the Gaussian form. For small $`\xi `$ the correlation is certainly not quadratic, and it approaches a $`\delta `$-function in the limit $`\xi 0`$. For arbitrary $`\xi `$ we expect that the average mean displacement squared in $`d=1`$ will scale as $`\overline{R_T(L)^2}L^{\gamma (\xi )}`$. Numerically, we can estimate the exponent $`\gamma (\xi )`$ by performing a linear fit to the plot of $`\mathrm{log}\overline{R_T(L)^2}`$ vs. $`\mathrm{log}L`$ and measuring the slope. For short range correlations we found that the numerical method described in Sec. III was unreliable. The reason for this is that the sum over energy eigenfunctions in Eq. (40) is unstable since a typical overlap $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n(R)^{}\mathrm{\Phi }_n(R^{})`$ (for short range correlations) is a number on the order of $`10^{15}`$. However, we were able evaluate Eq. (40) accurately for all $`\xi `$ by solving the Schrödinger equation on a lattice using a fourth order Runge-Kutta algorithm with a very small time step ($`t10^4`$). We found that for large $`L`$ the quantity $`\overline{R_T(L)^2}`$ saturates at a constant value due to the finite size of the system, and so we do not expect a power law scaling for large $`L`$. However, for $`L`$ sufficiently small (before the onset of saturation) the mean displacement squared does obey a power law and a linear fit on a log-log plot was excellent for all $`\xi `$.

In Fig. 11 we plot $`\gamma `$ vs. $`1/\xi ^2`$ for a range of $`\xi `$. For each point we averaged over $`8000`$ samples on a lattice of size $`N=300`$, and in all cases the strength of the random potential is taken to be large ($`g1`$).

We can see from the plot that $`\gamma `$ falls from $`4`$, in the case of very long range correlations, to about $`2.5`$ for very short range correlations. The case of delta correlated random potentials has been studied by Nattermann  using Flory arguments. Nattermann finds that for strong disorder ($`g1`$) the mean squared displacement behaves like $`\overline{R_T(L)^2}L^2\sqrt{g}\left(\mathrm{ln}(L)\right)^{3/2}`$ in $`d=1`$. It is clear from Nattermann’s arguments that $`\overline{R_T(L)^2}\overline{R_T(L)^2}`$, and so it is safe to compare our numerical results with his analytical expression. So while we find a scaling that is slightly faster than balistic ($`L^{2.5}`$), Nattermann finds a weakly subballistic behavior ($`L^2\mathrm{ln}(L)^{(3/2)}`$). Nevertheless, it is comforting to see that both results are fairly close to a balistic scaling ($`L^2`$).

We now turn our attention to the chain that is free to move. Here, we find that for short range correlations ($`\xi \sqrt{5}`$) the end-to-end distance rises linearly for small $`L`$ and saturates at a constant value for large $`L`$. This saturation is not due to the finite size of the system since it occurs at a value of $`L`$ far less than the length at which a free chain would saturate. Typically, for $`L1`$ we find that $`\overline{R_F^2(L)}L^0`$ as compared to $`\overline{R_F^2(L)}L`$ when the correlations are long range and quadratic. In order to quantify this crossover between the long and short range behavior we assume that the scaling relation $`\overline{R_F^2(L)}L^{\delta (\xi )}`$ holds for $`L1`$. Again we can estimate the exponent $`\delta (\xi )`$ by measuring the slope of the line in a linear fit of $`\mathrm{log}\overline{R_F^2(L)}`$ vs. $`\mathrm{log}L`$.

In Fig. 12 we plot $`\delta `$ vs. $`1/\xi ^2`$ for a range of $`\xi `$.

We computed the end-to-end distance for $`L`$ in the range $`5<L<10`$. For each point we averaged over $`1000`$ samples on a lattice of size $`N=200`$, and in all cases the strength of the random potential is taken to be large ($`g1`$). We can see from the graph that as the correlation range is decreased $`\delta `$ falls rapidly from about $`1`$ to a value close to zero. This implies that the behavior of $`\overline{R_F^2(L)}`$ is very strongly dependent on the correlation range. These results are consistent with the Flory arguments in Ref.  where it is predicted that a long polymer in a delta correlated random potential will have fixed size i.e. $`R^2L^0`$ in a sample of finite volume, and with the variational results of Ref.  (see also ).

## V Concluding Remarks

In this paper we presented a model of a polymer chain in a quenched random media which was exactly solvable using the replica method. The analytical results were subsequently found to be in close agreement with a numerical solution in $`d=1`$. Based on these results we can safely conclude that the replica method is accurate in describing the averaged properties of the polymer. The physical picture that emerged was interesting and somewhat surprising. We found that a quadratically correlated disorder has a major effect on the size of a polymer with one end fixed, but has no effect on the size of a chain that is free to move and find an optimal position. We also found that the quenched and annealed cases are rather different: In the annealed case a long chain collapses to a point.

Overall, we have learned that chain properties depend strongly on the correlation range of the random media. However, there are still some open problems. For instance, it would be very useful to have an analytical derivation of the results depicted in Figs. 11,12. Also, it may be fruitful to investigate various non-equilibrium properties of polymer chains in long range correlated random media, such as transport properties and chain dynamics. We hope that our results for the simple case of quadratic correlations will be a useful starting point for a more detailed analysis of these problems.

###### Acknowledgements.

Y.Y.G. acknowledges support from the US Department of Energy (DOE), grant No. DE-G02-98ER45686.

##

Here we show some of the intermediate steps that lead to Eq. (21). We first write the replicated partition sum as

$$Z_n(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a^{}\};L)=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^{d/2}}𝑑𝝀e^{𝝀^2/2}Z(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a^{}\};L,𝝀),$$
(50)
where

$$Z(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a^{}\};L,𝝀)=\underset{a=1}{\overset{n}{}}_{𝐑_a(0)=𝐑_a}^{𝐑_a(L)=𝐑_a^{}}[d𝐑_a]e^{\beta H_a(𝝀)}.$$
(51)
After performing the path integrals using equations $`(3.393.41)`$ in , we get

$$Z(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a^{}\};L,𝝀)=N_0e^{\beta \mathrm{\Phi }},$$
(52)
where

$`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`A\left({\displaystyle 𝐑_a^2}+{\displaystyle 𝐑_a^2}\right)+B\left({\displaystyle 𝐑_a}+{\displaystyle 𝐑_a^{}}\right)𝐚+2C{\displaystyle 𝐑_a𝐑_a^{}}+nD𝐚^2,`$ (53)
with

$`A`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sqrt{\mu ^{}M}\mathrm{coth}\left(L\sqrt{\mu ^{}/M}\right)`$ (54)
$`B`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\mu ^{}M}\left[\mathrm{cosh}\left(L\sqrt{\mu ^{}/M}\right)1\right]\left[\mathrm{sinh}\left(L\sqrt{\mu ^{}/M}\right)\right]^1`$ (55)
$`C`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sqrt{\mu ^{}M}[(\mathrm{sinh}\left(L\sqrt{\mu ^{}/M}\right)]^1`$ (56)
$`D`$ $`=`$ $`BL\mu ^{}/2,`$ (57)
$`𝐚`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\mu ^{}}}\sqrt{\sigma }𝝀.`$ (58)
The exact form of the normalization $`N_0`$ is unimportant as it will cancel out later. The next step is to perform the Gaussian integrals over the $`𝝀`$ variables in Eq. (50). This yields

$`Z_n(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a^{}\};L)`$ $`=`$ $`N_1\mathrm{exp}\{U({\displaystyle }𝐑_a^2+{\displaystyle }𝐑_a^2)V({\displaystyle }𝐑_a+{\displaystyle }𝐑_a^{})^2`$ (59)
$``$ $`2W{\displaystyle }𝐑_a𝐑_a^{}\},`$ (60)
with

$`U`$ $`=`$ $`\beta A`$ (61)
$`V`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\sigma \beta ^2B^2}{\mu _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+8\beta \sigma nD}}`$ (62)
$`W`$ $`=`$ $`\beta C.`$ (63)
Now, for arbitrary $`n`$ we can write

$`𝐑_1^2(L)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{𝑑𝐑_1\mathrm{}𝑑𝐑_n𝐑_1^2Z_n(\{\mathrm{𝟎}\},\{𝐑_a\};L)}{𝑑𝐑_1\mathrm{}𝑑𝐑_nZ_n(\{\mathrm{𝟎}\},\{𝐑_a\};L)}}`$ (64)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dU}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐑_1\mathrm{}𝑑𝐑_nZ_n(\{\mathrm{𝟎}\},\{𝐑_a\};L)}`$ (65)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dU}}\mathrm{ln}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^n}{U^{n1}(U+nV)}}\right]`$ (66)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{U}}{\displaystyle \frac{V}{U(U+Vn)}}\right).`$ (67)
We have used the fact that the eigenvalues of the matrix associated with the quadratic form in Eq. (60) are $`U`$ with multiplicity $`n1`$ and $`U+nV`$ with multiplicity 1, and the determinant is the product of the eigenvalues. The $`n0`$ can now be safely taken to yield

$$\overline{𝐑_T^2(L)}=\underset{n0}{lim}𝐑_1^2=\frac{d}{2\beta A}+\frac{\sigma d}{\mu ^2}\left(\frac{B}{A}\right)^2.$$
(68)
which simplifies to yield Eq. (21).

To calculate $`\overline{𝐑_T(L)^2}`$ we use

$`\overline{𝐑_T(L)^2}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{𝑑𝐑_1\mathrm{}𝑑𝐑_n𝐑_1𝐑_2Z_n(\{\mathrm{𝟎}\},\{𝐑_a\};L)}{𝑑𝐑_1\mathrm{}𝑑𝐑_nZ_n(\{\mathrm{𝟎}\},\{𝐑_a\};L)}}`$ (69)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n(n1)}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{d}{dU}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dV}}\right)\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐑_1\mathrm{}𝑑𝐑_nZ_n(\{\mathrm{𝟎}\},\{𝐑_a\};L)}`$ (70)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n(n1)}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{d}{dU}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dV}}\right)\mathrm{ln}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^n}{U^{n1}(U+nV)}}\right]`$ (71)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{V}{U(U+Vn)}}\right).`$ (72)
Next, we show how to calculate $`\overline{𝐑_F^2(L)}`$.

$`\overline{𝐑_F^2(L)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d𝐑_ad𝐑_a^{}\left(𝐑_1𝐑_1^{}\right)^2Z_n(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a^{}\};L)}{d𝐑_ad𝐑_{}^{}{}_{a}{}^{}Z_n(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a^{}\};L)}}.`$ (73)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{d}{dU}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dW}}\right)\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle d𝐑_ad𝐑_a^{}Z_n(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a^{}\};L)}`$ (74)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{d}{dU}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dW}}\right)\mathrm{ln}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^{2n}}{(U+W)^{n1}(UW)^n(U+W+2nV)}}\right]`$ (75)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{UW}}={\displaystyle \frac{d}{\beta (AC)}},`$ (76)
which yields Eq. (24).

Finally, we calculate $`\overline{𝐑_Q^2(L)}`$. This is given by

$`\overline{𝐑_Q^2(L)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{𝑑𝐑_1\mathrm{}𝑑𝐑_n𝐑_1^2Z_n(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a\};L)}{𝑑𝐑_1\mathrm{}𝑑𝐑_nZ_n(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a\};L)}}`$ (77)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2n}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dU}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐑_1\mathrm{}𝑑𝐑_nZ_n(\{𝐑_a\},\{𝐑_a\};L)}`$ (78)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2n}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dU}}\mathrm{ln}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^n}{[2(U+W)]^{n1}2(U+W+2nV)}}\right]`$ (79)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{U+W}}{\displaystyle \frac{2V}{(U+W)(U+W+2nV)}}\right).`$ (80)
In the limit $`n0`$ we obtain

$`\overline{𝐑_Q^2(L)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{U+W}}{\displaystyle \frac{2V}{(U+W)^2}}\right)`$ (81)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{\mu ^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{B}{A+C}}\right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{d}{4\beta (A+C)}},`$ (82)
which gives rise to Eq. (32). $`\overline{𝐑_Q(L)^2}`$ is calculated similarly from $`𝐑_1𝐑_2`$ and one obtains $`4\sigma d/\mu ^2`$ in agreement with Eq. (34).