arXiv:1001.0225 · Physical Review A

Restricted thermalization for two interacting atoms in a multimode harmonic waveguide

Vladimir Yurovsky, Maxim Olshanii

Published Apr 30, 2010• 10 citations

Abstract

In this article, we study the thermalizability of a system consisting of two atoms in a circular, transversely harmonic waveguide in the multimode regime. While showing some signatures of quantum-chaotic behavior, the system fails to reach a thermal equilibrium in a relaxation from an initial state, even when the interaction between the atoms is infinitely strong. We relate this phenomenon to the previously addressed unattainability of a complete quantum chaos in the \ifmmode \check{S}\else \v{S}\fi{}eba billiard [P. \ifmmode \check{S}\else \v{S}\fi{}eba, Phys. Rev. Lett. 64, 1855 (1990)], and we conjecture the absence of a complete thermalization to be a generic property of integrable quantum systems perturbed by a nonintegrable but well-localized perturbation.

DOI: 10.1103/physreva.81.043641

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