Related papers: Equilibration and thermalization in finite quantum…
The relaxation of isolated quantum many-body systems is a major unsolved problem connecting statistical and quantum physics. Studying such relaxation processes remains a challenge despite considerable efforts. Experimentally, it requires…
We review the recent progress in the understanding of the relaxation of isolated near-integrable quantum many-body systems. Focusing on prethermalization and universal dynamics following a quench, we describe the experiments with ultracold…
We use trapped atomic ions forming a hybrid Coulomb crystal, and exploit its phonons to study an isolated quantum system composed of a single spin coupled to an engineered bosonic environment. We increase the complexity of the system by…
Analyzing the dynamics of open quantum systems has a long history in mathematics and physics. Depending on the system at hand, basic physical phenomena that one would like to explain are, for example, convergence to equilibrium, the…
One of the outstanding problems in non-equilibrium physics is to precisely understand when and how physically relevant observables in many-body systems equilibrate under unitary time evolution. General equilibration results show that…
We review selected advances in the theoretical understanding of complex quantum many-body systems with regard to emergent notions of quantum statistical mechanics. We cover topics such as equilibration and thermalisation in pure state…
The evolution of a quasi-isolated finite quantum system from a nonequilibrium initial state is considered. The condition of quasi-isolation allows for the description of the system dynamics on the general basis, without specifying the…
It has recently been shown that small quantum subsystems generically equilibrate, in the sense that they spend most of the time close to a fixed equilibrium state. This relies on just two assumptions: that the state is spread over many…
We analyze the equilibration process between two either fermionic or bosonic reservoirs containing ultracold atoms with a fixed total number of particles that are weakly connected via a few-level quantum system. We allow for both the…
The unitary dynamics of isolated quantum systems does not allow a pure state to thermalize. Because of that, if an isolated quantum system equilibrates, it will do so to the predictions of the so-called "diagonal ensemble" $\rho_{DE}$.…
We study the internal dynamics of an elementary quantum system placed close to a body held at a temperature different from that of the surrounding radiation. We derive general expressions for lifetime and density matrix valid for bodies of…
We characterize the conditions under which a multi-time quantum process with a finite temporal resolution can be approximately described by an equilibrium one. By providing a generalization of the notion of equilibration on average, where a…
Ultracold atomic physics experiments offer a nearly ideal context for the investigation of quantum systems far from equilibrium. We describe three related emerging directions of research into extreme non-equilibrium phenomena in atom traps:…
We present a rigorous analysis of the phenomenon of decoherence for general N-level systems coupled to reservoirs of free massless bosonic fields. We apply our general results to the specific case of the qubit. Our approach does not involve…
Based on the view that thermal equilibrium should be characterized through macroscopic observations, we develop a general theory about typicality of thermal equilibrium and the approach to thermal equilibrium in macroscopic quantum systems.…
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,…
Simulations are performed of a small quantum system interacting with a quantum environment. The system consists of various initial states of two harmonic oscillators coupled to give normal modes. The environment is "designed" by its level…
Inside quantum mechanics the problem of decoherence for an isolated, finite system is linked to a coarse-grained description of its dynamics.
The issue of the thermalization of an isolated quantum system is addressed by considering a perfect gas confined by gravity and initially trapped above a certain height. As we are interested in the behavior of truly isolated systems, we…
We investigate the onset of thermalization and quantum chaos in finite one-dimensional gapped systems of hard-core bosons. Integrability in these systems is broken by next-nearest-neighbor repulsive interactions, which also generate a…