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arXiv:0810.4845 · Physical Review Letters

Relaxation of Antiferromagnetic Order in Spin- 1 / 2 Chains Following a Quantum Quench

Peter Barmettler, Matthias Punk, Vladimir Gritsev, Eugene Demler, Ehud Altman

Published Apr 1, 2009• 197 citations
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Abstract

We study the unitary time evolution of antiferromagnetic order in anisotropic Heisenberg chains that are initially prepared in a pure quantum state far from equilibrium. Our analysis indicates that the antiferromagnetic order imprinted in the initial state vanishes exponentially. Depending on the anisotropy parameter, oscillatory or nonoscillatory relaxation dynamics is observed. Furthermore, the corresponding relaxation time exhibits a minimum at the critical point, in contrast to the usual notion of critical slowing down, from which a maximum is expected.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.102.130603

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We study the unitary time evolution of antiferromagnetic order in anisotropic Heisenberg chains that are initially prepared in a pure quantum state far from equilibrium. Our analysis indicates that the antiferromagnetic order imprinted in the initial state vanishes exponentially. Depending on the anisotropy parameter, oscillatory or nonoscillatory relaxation dynamics is observed. Furthermore, the corresponding relaxation time exhibits a minimum at the critical point, in contrast to the usual notion of critical slowing down, from which a maximum is expected.
Recent experimental achievements in controlling ultracold gases in optical lattices open a new perspective on quantum many-body physics. In these experimental setups, it is possible to study coherent time evolution of isolated quantum systems. These dynamics reveal new physics beyond the low-energy properties that are usually relevant in solid-state many-body systems. In this paper, we study the time evolution of antiferromagnetic order in the Heisenberg chain after a sudden change of the anisotropy parameter, using various numerical and analytical methods. As a generic result, we find that the order parameter, which can show oscillatory or non-oscillatory dynamics, decays exponentially except for the effectively non-interacting case of the XX limit. For weakly ordered initial states, we also find evidence for an algebraic correction to the exponential law. The study is based on numerical simulations using a numerical matrix product method for infinite system sizes (iMPS), for which we provide a detailed description and an error analysis. Additionally, we investigate in detail the exactly solvable XX limit. These results are compared to approximative analytical approaches including an effective description by the XZ model as well as by mean-field, Luttinger-liquid and sine-Gordon theories. The comparison reveals which aspects of non-equilibrium dynamics can, as in equilibrium, be described by low-energy theories and which are the novel phenomena specific to quantum quench dynamics. The relevance of the energetically high part of the spectrum is illustrated by means of a full numerical diagonalization of the Hamiltonian.
We investigate the relaxation dynamics of equal-time correlations in the antiferromagnetic phase of the XXZ spin-1/2 chain following a global quantum quench of the anisotropy parameter. We focus, in particular, on the relaxation dynamics starting from an initial N\'eel state. Using state-of-the-art density-matrix renormalization group simulations, the exact solution of an effective free-fermion model, and the quench-action approach within the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz, we show that the late-time relaxation is characterized by a power-law decay $\ensuremath{\sim}{t}^{\ensuremath{-}3/2}$ independent of anisotropy. This is in contrast to the previously studied exponential decay of the antiferromagnetic order parameter. Remarkably, the effective model describes the numerical data extremely well even on a quantitative level if higher-order corrections to the leading asymptotic behavior are taken into account.
By means of free fermionic techniques combined with multiple precision arithmetic we study the time evolution of the average magnetization, , of the random transverse-field Ising chain after global quenches. We observe different relaxation behaviors for quenches starting from different initial states to the critical point. Starting from a fully ordered initial state, the relaxation is logarithmically slow described by , and in a finite sample of length L the average magnetization saturates at a size-dependent plateau here the two exponents satisfy the relation . Starting from a fully disordered initial state, the magnetization stays at zero for a period of time until with and then starts to increase until it saturates to an asymptotic value , with . For both quenching protocols, finite-size scaling is satisfied in terms of the scaled variable . Furthermore, the distribution of long-time limiting values of the magnetization shows that the typical and the average values scale differently and the average is governed by rare events. The non-equilibrium dynamical behavior of the magnetization is explained through semi-classical theory.
In the framework of the matrix product state representation the effect of a sudden turning on of the uniaxial anisotropy on the time evolution of the Haldane state has been investigated.Depending on the value of the uniaxial anisotropy parameter, the calculations were derived within (or outside) the region where the Haldane gap survives.An exact expression for the time evolution of the Loschmidt echo has been derived and, moreover, its collapse and revival behaviour was captured.In addition, the non-local order parameter of a time evolving state was tracked, revealing two types of relaxations.
We consider the time evolution after quantum quenches in the spin-12\frac{1}{2}21​ Heisenberg XXZ quantum spin chain with Ising-type anisotropy. The time evolution of short-distance spin-spin correlation functions is studied by numerical tensor network techniques for a variety of initial states, including N\'eel and Majumdar-Ghosh states and the ground state of the XXZ chain at large values of the anisotropy. The various correlators appear to approach stationary values, which are found to be in good agreement with the results of exact calculations of stationary expectation values in appropriate generalized Gibbs ensembles. In particular, our analysis shows how symmetries of the post-quench Hamiltonian that are broken by particular initial states are restored at late times.
By means of free fermionic techniques combined with multiple precision arithmetic we study the time evolution of the average magnetization, m‾(t)\overline{m}(t)m(t), of the random transverse-field Ising chain after global quenches. We observe different relaxation behaviors for quenches starting from different initial states to the critical point. Starting from a fully ordered initial state, the relaxation is logarithmically slow described by m‾(t)∼ln⁡at\overline{m}(t) \sim \ln^a tm(t)∼lnat, and in a finite sample of length LLL the average magnetization saturates at a size-dependent plateau m‾p(L)∼L−b\overline{m}_p(L) \sim L^{-b}mp​(L)∼L−b; here the two exponents satisfy the relation b/a=ψ=1/2b/a=\psi=1/2b/a=ψ=1/2. Starting from a fully disordered initial state, the magnetization stays at zero for a period of time until t=tdt=t_dt=td​ with ln⁡td∼Lψ\ln t_d \sim L^{\psi}lntd​∼Lψ and then starts to increase until it saturates to an asymptotic value m‾p(L)∼L−b′\overline{m}_p(L) \sim L^{-b'}mp​(L)∼L−b′, with b′≈1.5b'\approx 1.5b′≈1.5. For both quenching protocols, finite-size scaling is satisfied in terms of the scaled variable ln⁡t/Lψ\ln t/L^{\psi}lnt/Lψ. Furthermore, the distribution of long-time limiting values of the magnetization shows that the typical and the average values scale differently and the average is governed by rare events. The non-equilibrium dynamical behavior of the magnetization is explained through semi-classical theory.