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arXiv:0810.5508 · Physical Review Letters

Effective Thermal Dynamics Following a Quantum Quench in a Spin Chain

Davide Rossini, Alessandro Silva, Giuseppe Mussardo, Giuseppe E. Santoro

Published Mar 26, 2009• 242 citations
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Abstract

We study the nonequilibrium dynamics of the quantum Ising model following an abrupt quench of the transverse field. We focus on the on-site autocorrelation function of the order parameter, and extract the phase-coherence time tau(Q)(phi) from its asymptotic behavior. We show that the initial state determines tau(Q)(phi) only through an effective temperature set by its energy and the final Hamiltonian. Moreover, we observe that the dependence of tau(Q)(phi) on the effective temperature fairly agrees with that obtained in thermal equilibrium as a function of the equilibrium temperature.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.102.127204

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We study the nonequilibrium dynamics of the quantum Ising model following an abrupt quench of the transverse field. We focus on the on-site autocorrelation function of the order parameter, and extract the phase-coherence time tau(Q)(phi) from its asymptotic behavior. We show that the initial state determines tau(Q)(phi) only through an effective temperature set by its energy and the final Hamiltonian. Moreover, we observe that the dependence of tau(Q)(phi) on the effective temperature fairly agrees with that obtained in thermal equilibrium as a function of the equilibrium temperature.
We study the dynamics of the quantum Ising chain following a zero-temperature quench of the transverse field strength. Focusing on the behavior of two-point spin correlation functions, we show that the correlators of the order parameter display an effective asymptotic thermal behavior; i.e., they decay exponentially to zero with a phase coherence rate and a correlation length dictated by the equilibrium law with an effective temperature set by the energy of the initial state. On the contrary, the two-point correlation functions of the transverse magnetization or the density-of-kinks operator decay as a power law and do not exhibit thermal behavior. We argue that the different behavior is linked to the locality of the corresponding operator with respect to the quasiparticles of the model: nonlocal operators, such as the order parameter, behave thermally, while local ones do not. We study which features of the two-point correlators are a consequence of the integrability of the model by analyzing their robustness with respect to a sufficiently strong integrability-breaking term.
Dynamic correlation and response functions of classical and quantum systems in thermal equilibrium are connected by fluctuation-dissipation theorems, which allow an alternative definition of their (unique) temperature. Motivated by this fundamental property, we revisit the issue of thermalization of closed many-body quantum systems long after a sudden quench, focusing on the nonequilibrium dynamics of the Ising chain in a critical transverse field. We show the emergence of distinct observable-dependent effective temperatures, which rule out Gibbs thermalization in a strict sense but might still have a thermodynamic meaning.
Abstract Fluctuation-dissipation relations, i.e., the relation between two-time correlation and linear response functions, were successfully used to search for signs of equilibration and to identify effective temperatures in the non-equilibrium behavior of a number of macroscopic classical and quantum systems in contact with thermal baths. Among the most relevant cases in which the effective temperatures thus defined were shown to have a thermodynamic meaning one finds the stationary dynamics of driven super-cooled liquids and vortex glasses, and the relaxation of glasses. Whether and under which conditions an effective thermal behavior can be found in quantum isolated many-body systems after a global quench is a question of current interest. We propose to study the possible emergence of thermal behavior long after the quench by studying fluctuation-dissipation relations in which (possibly time- or frequency-dependent) parameters replace the equilibrium temperature. If thermalization within the Gibbs ensemble eventually occurs these parameters should be constant and equal for all pairs of observables in ‘partial’ or ‘mutual’ equilibrium. We analyze these relations in the paradigmatic quantum system, i.e., the quantum Ising chain, in the stationary regime after a quench of the transverse field. The lack of thermalization to a Gibbs ensemble becomes apparent within this approach.
We investigate the time evolution of the density of kinks in the spin-1/2 quantum Ising spin chain after a sudden quench in the transverse field strength, and find that it relaxes to a value which depends on the initial and the final values of the transverse field, with an oscillating power-law decay. We provide analytical estimates of the long-time behavior and of the asymptotic value reached after complete relaxation, and discuss the role of quantum criticality in the quench dynamics. We show that, for a dynamics at the critical point, the residual density of kinks after the quench can be described by equilibrium statistical mechanics at a finite temperature dictated by the energy of the state after the quench. On the other hand, outside of criticality it does not exhibit thermalization.
We explore the robustness of universal dynamical scaling behavior in a quantum system near criticality with respect to initialization in a large class of states with finite energy. By focusing on a homogeneous XY\mathit{XY}XY quantum spin chain in a transverse field, we characterize the nonequilibrium response under adiabatic and sudden quench processes originating from a pure as well as a mixed excited initial state, and involving either a regular quantum critical or a multicritical point. We find that the critical exponents of the ground-state quantum phase transition can be encoded in the dynamical scaling exponents despite the finite energy of the initial state. In particular, we identify conditions on the initial distribution of quasiparticle excitation that ensure that Kibble-Zurek scaling persists. The emergence of effective thermal equilibrium behavior following a sudden quench toward criticality is also investigated, with focus on the long-time expectation value of the quasiparticle number operator. Despite the integrability of the XY\mathit{XY}XY model, this observable is found to behave thermally in quenches to a regular quantum critical point, provided that the system is initially prepared at sufficiently high temperature. However, a similar thermalization behavior fails to occur in quenches toward a multicritical point. We argue that the observed lack of thermalization originates in this case in the asymmetry of the impulse region that is also responsible for anomalous multicritical dynamical scaling.
Based on the obtained exact results we systematically study the quench dynamics of a one-dimensional spin-1/2 transverse field Ising model with zero- and finite-temperature initial states. We focus on the magnetization of the system after a sudden change of the external field and a coherent time-evolution process. With a zero-temperature initial state, the quench magnetic susceptibility as a function of the initial field strength exhibits strongly similar scaling behaviors to those of the static magnetic susceptibility, and the quench magnetic susceptibility as a function of the final field strength shows a discontinuity at the quantum critical point. This discontinuity remains robust and always occurs at the quantum critical point even for the case of finite-temperature initial systems, which indicates a great advantage of employing quench dynamics to study quantum phase transitions.