Mean-Field Evolution of Fermionic Mixed States

In this paper we study the dynamics of fermionic mixed states in the mean-field regime. We consider initial states that are close to quasi-free states and prove that, under suitable assumptions on the initial data and on the many-body interaction, the quantum evolution of such initial data is well approximated by a suitable quasi-free state. In particular, we prove that the evolution of the reduced one-particle density matrix converges, as the number of particles goes to infinity, to the solution of the time-dependent Hartree-Fock equation. Our result holds for all times and gives effective estimates on the rate of convergence of the many-body dynamics towards the Hartree-Fock evolution.(c) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.