English

Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) for off-diagonal matrix elements in integrable spin chains

Statistical Mechanics 2026-02-18 v2 Quantum Gases Strongly Correlated Electrons High Energy Physics - Theory Quantum Physics

Abstract

We investigate off-diagonal matrix elements of local operators in integrable spin chains, focusing on the isotropic spin-1/21/2 Heisenberg chain (XXXXXX chain). We employ state-of-the-art Algebraic Bethe Ansatz results, which allow us to efficiently compute matrix elements of operators with support up to two sites between generic energy eigenstates. We consider both matrix elements between eigenstates that are in the same thermodynamic macrostate, as well as eigenstates that belong to different macrostates. In the former case, focusing on thermal states we numerically show that matrix elements are compatible with the exponential decay as exp(LMijO)\exp(-L |{M}^{\scriptscriptstyle{\mathcal{O}}}_{ij}|). The probability distribution functions of MijO{M}_{ij}^{\scriptscriptstyle{\mathcal{O}}} depend on the observable and on the macrostate, and are well described by Gumbel distributions. On the other hand, matrix elements between eigenstates in different macrostates decay faster as exp(MijOL2)\exp(-|{M'}_{ij}^{\scriptscriptstyle{\mathcal{O}}}|L^2), with MijO{M'}_{ij}^{\scriptscriptstyle \mathcal{O}}, again, compatible with a Gumbel distribution.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2505.23602,
  title  = {Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) for off-diagonal matrix elements in integrable spin chains},
  author = {Federico Rottoli and Vincenzo Alba},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.23602},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

19 pages, 9 figures, 1 appendix

R2 v1 2026-07-01T02:48:42.743Z