Expedited thermalization dynamics in incommensurate systems
Abstract
We study the thermalization dynamics of a quantum system embedded in an incommensurate potential and coupled to a Markovian thermal reservoir. The dephasing induced by the bath drives the system toward an infinite-temperature steady state, erasing all initial information-including signatures of localization. We find that initially localized states can relax to the homogeneous steady state faster than delocalized states. Moreover, low-temperature initial states thermalize to infinite temperature more rapidly than high-temperature states -- a phenomenon reminiscent of the Mpemba effect, in which hotter liquids freeze faster than colder ones. The slowest relaxation mode in the Liouvillian spectrum plays a critical role in the expedited thermalization for localized or cold initial states. Our results reveal that the combination of disordered structure and environmental dissipation may lead to non-trivial thermalization behavior, which advances both the conceptual framework of the Mpemba effect and the theoretical understanding of nonequilibrium processes in dissipative disordered systems.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2505.03645,
title = {Expedited thermalization dynamics in incommensurate systems},
author = {Mingdi Xu and Zijun Wei and Xiang-Ping Jiang and Lei Pan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.03645},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
8 pages, 4 figures, comments are welcome