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Related papers: Necessity of Eigenstate Thermalization

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We ask whether the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) is valid in a strong sense: in the limit of an infinite system, {\it every} eigenstate is thermal. We examine expectation values of few-body operators in highly-excited many-body…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2014-11-13 Hyungwon Kim , Tatsuhiko N. Ikeda , David A. Huse

If and how an isolated quantum system thermalizes despite its unitary time evolution is a long-standing, open problem of many-body physics. The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) postulates that thermalization happens at the level…

Quantum Gases · Physics 2018-11-06 Anna Posazhennikova , Mauricio Trujillo-Martinez , Johann Kroha

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…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2014-03-13 Sergei Khlebnikov , Martin Kruczenski

The strong eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) provides a sufficient condition for thermalization and equilibration. Although it is expected to be hold in a wide class of highly chaotic theories, there are only a few analytic…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2026-01-19 Taishi Kawamoto

This review gives a pedagogical introduction to the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), its basis, and its implications to statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. In the first part, ETH is introduced as a natural extension of…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2016-08-02 Luca D'Alessio , Yariv Kafri , Anatoli Polkovnikov , Marcos Rigol

Isolated quantum systems typically approach thermal equilibrium as described by the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH). Going beyond this involves either higher order correlators (full thermalization) or the formation of state…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-05-01 Tabea Herrmann , Felix Fritzsch , Arnd Bäcker

The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) provides a powerful framework for understanding thermalization in isolated quantum many-body systems, yet a complete and conceptually transparent derivation has remained elusive. In this work,…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2025-12-23 Yucheng Wang

Chaos and ergodicity are the cornerstones of statistical physics and thermodynamics. While classically even small systems like a particle in a two-dimensional cavity, can exhibit chaotic behavior and thereby relax to a microcanonical…

Quantum Gases · Physics 2017-07-19 Anatoli Polkovnikov , Dries Sels

The Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) has played a major role in understanding thermodynamic phenomena in closed quantum systems. However, its connection to the timescale of thermalization for open system dynamics has remained…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2023-03-30 Chi-Fang Chen , Fernando G. S. L. Brandão

The Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) provides a way to understand how an isolated quantum mechanical system can be approximated by a thermal density matrix. We find a class of operators in (1+1)-$d$ conformal field theories,…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2017-08-30 Pallab Basu , Diptarka Das , Shouvik Datta , Sridip Pal

Motivated by the qualitative picture of Canonical Typicality, we propose a refined formulation of the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) for chaotic quantum systems. The new formulation, which we refer to as subsystem ETH, is in…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2018-04-06 Anatoly Dymarsky , Nima Lashkari , Hong Liu

There is a dichotomy in the nonequilibrium dynamics of quantum many body systems. In the presence of integrability, expectation values of local operators equilibrate to values described by a generalized Gibbs ensemble, which retains…

Strongly Correlated Electrons · Physics 2019-05-15 Neil J. Robinson , Andrew J. A. James , Robert M. Konik

The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), which dictates that all diagonal matrix elements within a small energy shell be almost equal, is a major candidate to explain thermalization in isolated quantum systems. According to the…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2018-02-27 Ryusuke Hamazaki , Masahito Ueda

The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) has been highly influential in explaining thermodynamic behavior of closed quantum systems. As of yet, it is unclear whether and how the ETH applies to non-Hermitian systems. Here, we introduce…

Quantum thermalization is well understood via the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH). The general form of ETH, describing all the relevant correlations of matrix elements, may be derived on the basis of a `typicality' argument of…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2023-03-30 Silvia Pappalardi , Laura Foini , Jorge Kurchan

The Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) provides a sufficient condition for thermalization of isolated quantum systems. While the standard ETH is formulated in the absence of degeneracy, physical systems often possess symmetries that…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2026-05-27 Soma Onoda , Osamu Fukushima , Ryusuke Hamazaki , Okuto Morikawa

We verify that the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) holds universally for locally interacting quantum many-body systems. Introducing random-matrix ensembles with interactions, we numerically obtain a distribution of maximum…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2021-03-31 Shoki Sugimoto , Ryusuke Hamazaki , Masahito Ueda

The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) is a successful theory that establishes the criteria for ergodicity and thermalization in isolated quantum many-body systems. In this work, we investigate the thermalization properties of…

Currently there are two main approaches to describe how quantum statistical physics emerges from an isolated quantum many-body system in a pure state: Canonical Typicality (CT) and Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH). These two…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2018-01-31 Anatoly Dymarsky , Hong Liu

The Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) posits that the reduced density matrix for a subsystem corresponding to an excited eigenstate is "thermal." Here we expound on this hypothesis by asking: for which class of operators, local or…

Strongly Correlated Electrons · Physics 2018-05-02 James R. Garrison , Tarun Grover