Related papers: Strong and weak thermalization of infinite non-int…
Temperature is a deceptively simple concept that still raises deep questions at the forefront of quantum physics research. The observation of thermalisation in completely isolated quantum systems, such as cold-atom quantum simulators,…
Focusing on isolated macroscopic systems, described either in terms of a quantum mechanical or a classical model, our two key questions are: In how far does an initial ensemble (usually far from equilibrium and largely unknown in detail)…
Thermal states are the bedrock of statistical physics. Nevertheless, when and how they actually arise in closed quantum systems is not fully understood. We consider this question for systems with local Hamiltonians on finite quantum…
We study the thermalization of an elementary quantum system modeled by a two-level atom interacting with stationary electromagnetic fields out of thermal equilibrium near a dielectric slab. The slab is held at a temperature different from…
We study in detail the properties of the quantum East model, an interacting quantum spin chain inspired by simple kinetically-constrained models of classical glasses. Through a combination of analytics, exact diagonalization and…
We explore the origin of the arrow of time in an isolated quantum system described by the Schroedinger equation. We provide an explanation from weak values in the configuration space, which are understood as operational properties obtained…
We consider an ideal experiment in which unlimited nonprojective quantum measurements are sequentially performed on a system that is initially entangled with a distant one. At each step of the sequence, the measurements are randomly chosen…
The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) posits how isolated quantum many-body systems thermalize, assuming that individual eigenstates at the same energy density have identical expectation values of local observables in the limit of…
We discuss the onset of the thermalization process in high-energy heavy-ion collisions from a weak coupling perspective, using classical-statistical real-time lattice simulations as a first principles tool to study the pre-equilibrium…
By solving the exact master equation of open quantum systems, we formulate the quantum thermodynamics from weak to strong couplings. The open quantum systems exchange matters, energies and information with their reservoirs through quantum…
We investigate theoretically the emergence of classical statistical physics in a finite quantum system that is either totally isolated or otherwise subjected to a quantum measurement process. We show via a random matrix theory approach to…
A microscopic understanding of the thermodynamic entropy in quantum systems has been a mystery ever since the invention of quantum mechanics. In classical physics, this entropy is believed to be the logarithm of the volume of phase space…
Irreversibility, despite being a necessary condition for thermalization, still lacks a sound understanding in the context of isolated quantum many-body systems. In this work we approach this question by studying the behavior of generic…
In an isolated quantum many-body system undergoing unitary evolution, the entropy of a subsystem (smaller than half the system size) thermalizes if at long times, it is to leading order equal to the thermodynamic entropy of the subsystem at…
The process of thermalization in many-body systems is driven by complex interactions among sub-systems and with the surrounding environment. Here we lay the theoretical foundations for the active control of local thermal states in arbitrary…
Understanding the evolution towards thermal equilibrium of an isolated quantum system is at the foundation of statistical mechanics and a subject of interest in such diverse areas as cold atom physics or the quantum mechanics of black…
We explore how entanglement and non-locality evolve between specific spectral components of two-mode squeezed states in thermal environments. These spectral components are extracted from output modes using filters that are frequently…
In this work we investigate the late-time stationary states of open quantum systems coupled to a thermal reservoir in the strong coupling regime. In general such systems do not necessarily relax to a Boltzmann distribution if the coupling…
We review exact approaches and recent results related to the relaxation dynamics and description after relaxation of various one-dimensional lattice systems of hard-core bosons after a sudden quench. We first analyze the integrable case,…
We show that weak measurements can induce a quantum phase transition of interacting many-body systems from an ergodic thermal phase with a large entropy to a nonergodic localized phase with a small entropy, but only if the measurement…