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Title: A trace inequality of Ando, Hiai, and Okubo and a monotonicity property of the Golden–Thompson inequality
The Golden–Thompson trace inequality, which states that Tr  e H+ K ≤ Tr  e H e K , has proved to be very useful in quantum statistical mechanics. Golden used it to show that the classical free energy is less than the quantum one. Here, we make this G–T inequality more explicit by proving that for some operators, notably the operators of interest in quantum mechanics, H = Δ or [Formula: see text] and K = potential, Tr  e H+(1− u) K e uK is a monotone increasing function of the parameter u for 0 ≤ u ≤ 1. Our proof utilizes an inequality of Ando, Hiai, and Okubo (AHO): Tr  X s Y t X 1− s Y 1− t ≤ Tr  XY for positive operators X, Y and for [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text]. The obvious conjecture that this inequality should hold up to s + t ≤ 1 was proved false by Plevnik [Indian J. Pure Appl. Math. 47, 491–500 (2016)]. We give a different proof of AHO and also give more counterexamples in the [Formula: see text] range. More importantly, we show that the inequality conjectured in AHO does indeed hold in the full range if X, Y have a certain positivity property—one that does hold for quantum mechanical operators, thus enabling us to prove our G–T monotonicity theorem.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2055282
PAR ID:
10422151
Author(s) / Creator(s):
;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Journal of Mathematical Physics
Volume:
63
Issue:
6
ISSN:
0022-2488
Page Range / eLocation ID:
062203
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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