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Related papers: Necessity of Eigenstate Thermalization

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Thermalization of a closed chaotic quantum system is commonly addressed in terms of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH). An alternative approach uses the Bohigas-Giannoni-Schmit (BGS) conjecture. The comparison shows that the two…

Mathematical Physics · Physics 2025-09-29 Hans A. Weidenmüller

Quantum thermalization describes how closed quantum systems can effectively reach thermal equilibrium, resolving the apparent incongruity between the reversibility of Schr\"odinger's equation and the second law of thermodynamics. Despite…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-01-08 Saúl Pilatowsky-Cameo , Soonwon Choi

In the ongoing discussion on thermalization in closed quantum many-body systems, the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) has recently been proposed as a universal concept which attracted considerable attention. So far this concept…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2014-04-04 Robin Steinigeweg , Abdelah Khodja , Hendrik Niemeyer , Christian Gogolin , Jochen Gemmer

Understanding how out-of-equilibrium states thermalize under quantum unitary dynamics is an important problem in many-body physics. In this work, we propose a statistical ansatz for the matrix elements of non-equilibrium initial states in…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2025-04-30 Laura Foini , Anatoly Dymarsky , Silvia Pappalardi

Despite the unitary evolution of closed quantum systems, long-time expectation of local observables are well described by thermal ensembles, providing the foundation of quantum statistical mechanics. A promising route to understanding this…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-02-03 Yuke Zhang , Pengfei Zhang

A system put in contact with a large heat bath normally thermalizes. This means that the state of the system approaches an equilibrium state, the latter depending only on macroscopic characteristics of the bath (e.g. temperature), but not…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2010-07-20 Oleg Lychkovskiy

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.…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2018-08-02 Hal Tasaki

In the study of thermalization in finite isolated quantum systems, an inescapable issue is the definition of temperature. We examine and compare different possible ways of assigning temperatures to energies or equivalently to eigenstates in…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2023-02-03 Phillip C. Burke , Goran Nakerst , Masudul Haque

Generic rotationally invariant random matrix models satisfy a simple relation: the probability distribution of off-diagonal elements and the one of half the difference between any two diagonal elements coincide. In the spirit of the…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2020-01-15 Laura Foini , Jorge Kurchan

We prove the Eigenstate Thermalisation Hypothesis (ETH) for local observables in a typical translation invariant system of quantum spins with mean field interaction. This mathematically verifies the observation made in [L.Santos and…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2023-12-22 Shoki Sugimoto , Joscha Henheik , Volodymyr Riabov , László Erdős

The Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) has been established as a cornerstone for understanding thermalization in quantum many-body systems. Recently, there has been growing interest in the full ETH, which extends the framework of…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2026-05-12 Merlin Füllgraf , Jochen Gemmer , Jiaozi Wang

The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) underpins much of our modern understanding of the thermalization of closed quantum many-body systems. Here, we investigate the statistical properties of observables in the eigenbasis of the…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2026-01-19 Gabriel Almeida , Pedro Ribeiro , Masudul Haque , Lucas Sá

We provide a pedagogical introduction to eigenstate thermalization. This phenomenon, which occurs in generic quantum systems, allows one to understand why thermalization takes place in isolated systems under unitary dynamics. We motivate…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-04-29 Rohit Patil , Marcos Rigol

Nonequilibrium dynamics of a nonintegrable system without the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis is studied. It is shown that, in the thermodynamic limit, this model thermalizes after an arbitrary quantum quench at finite temperature,…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2017-09-06 Takashi Mori , Naoto Shiraishi

The Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) explains emergence of the thermodynamic equilibrium by assuming a particular structure of observable's matrix elements in the energy eigenbasis. Schematically, it postulates that off-diagonal…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2022-05-11 Jiaozi Wang , Mats H. Lamann , Jonas Richter , Robin Steinigeweg , Anatoly Dymarsky , Jochen Gemmer

We investigate the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) for a translationally invariant quantum spin system on the $d$-dimensional cubic lattice under the periodic boundary conditions. It is known that the ETH holds in this model for…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2016-10-03 Takashi Mori

We investigate the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) in integrable models, focusing on the spin-1/2 isotropic Heisenberg (XXX) chain. We provide numerical evidence that ETH holds for typical eigenstates (weak ETH scenario).…

Strongly Correlated Electrons · Physics 2015-04-22 Vincenzo Alba

We consider a minimal model for quantum thermalization of coupled chaotic subsystems. The route towards ergodicity is explored as a function of the coupling strength. The results are contrasted with the predictions of standard Random Matrix…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2025-12-23 Amichay Vardi , Doron Cohen

Under unitary time evolution, expectation values of physically reasonable observables often evolve towards the predictions of equilibrium statistical mechanics. The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) states that this is also true…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2018-04-19 Fabio Anza , Christian Gogolin , Marcus Huber

The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) is a conjecture on the nature of isolated quantum systems that guarantees the thermal behavior of subsystems when it is satisfied. ETH has been tested in various forms on a number of local…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2019-09-18 Masudul Haque , Paul McClarty