Related papers: New equilibrium ensembles for isolated quantum sys…
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…
We prove the approach to equilibrium of quenched isolated quantum systems for which the change in the Hamiltonian brought about by the quench satisfies a certain closed commutator algebra with all the extensive integrals of motion of the…
Two identical finite quantum systems prepared initially at different temperatures, isolated from the environment, and subsequently brought into contact are demonstrated to relax towards Gibbs-like quasi-equilibrium states with a common…
Investigation on foundational aspects of quantum statistical mechanics recently entered a renaissance period due to novel intuitions from quantum information theory and to increasing attention on the dynamical aspects of single quantum…
Thermalization of an isolated quantum system has been a nontrivial problem since the early days of quantum mechanics. In generic isolated quantum systems, nonequilibrium dynamics is expected to result in thermalization, indicating the…
Understanding quantum thermalization through entanglement build-up in isolated quantum systems addresses fundamental questions on how unitary dynamics connects to statistical physics. Here, we study the spin dynamics and approach towards…
This chapter discusses the conditions and timescales under which isolated many-body quantum systems, initially far from equilibrium, ultimately reach thermal equilibrium. We also examine quantities that, during the relaxation process,…
Statistical mechanics is one of the most comprehensive theories in physics. From a boiling pot of water to the complex dynamics of quantum many-body systems it provides a successful connection between the microscopic dynamics of atoms and…
A diagonal entropy, which depends only on the diagonal elements of the system's density matrix in the energy representation, has been recently introduced as the proper definition of thermodynamic entropy in out-of-equilibrium quantum…
Macroscopic quantum superpositions are widely believed to be unobservable because large systems cannot be perfectly isolated from their environments. Here, we show that even under perfect isolation, intrinsic unitary dynamics with the…
Understanding relaxation processes is an important unsolved problem in many areas of physics. A key challenge in studying such non-equilibrium dynamics is the scarcity of experimental tools for characterizing their complex transient states.…
Integrable systems do not obey the strong eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), which has been proposed as a mechanism of thermalization in isolated quantum systems. It has been suggested that an integrable system reaches a steady…
The local physical properties of an isolated quantum statistical system in the stationary state reached long after a quench are generically described by the Gibbs ensemble, which involves only its Hamiltonian and the temperature as a…
The dynamics of quantum entanglement plays a central role in explaining the emergence of thermal equilibrium in isolated many-body systems. However, entanglement is notoriously hard to measure. Recent works have introduced a notion of…
The Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis implies that for a thermodynamically large system in one of its eigenstates, the reduced density matrix describing any finite subsystem is determined solely by a set of {\it relevant} conserved…
We establish a link between unitary relaxation dynamics after a quench in closed many-body systems and the entanglement in the energy eigenbasis. We find that even if reduced states equilibrate, they can have memory on the initial…
We report universal statistical properties displayed by ensembles of pure states that naturally emerge in quantum many-body systems. Specifically, two classes of state ensembles are considered: those formed by i) the temporal trajectory of…
Statistical mechanics is founded on the assumption that all accessible configurations of a system are equally likely. This requires dynamics that explore all states over time, known as ergodic dynamics. In isolated quantum systems, however,…
We consider the non-equilibrium dynamics in isolated systems, described by quantum field theories (QFTs). After being prepared in a density matrix that is not an eigenstate of the Hamiltonian, such systems are expected to relax locally to a…
An isolated quantum many-body system in an initial pure state will come to thermal equilibrium if it satisfies the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH). We consider alternatives to ETH that have been proposed. We first show that von…