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arXiv:1406.4613 · Journal of Statistical Mechanics Theory and Experiment

Failure of the generalized eigenstate thermalization hypothesis in integrable models with multiple particle species

Balázs Pozsgay

Published Sep 22, 2014• 62 citations
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Abstract

It has been recently observed for a particular quantum quench in the XXZ spin chain that local observables do not equilibrate to the predictions of the generalized Gibbs ensemble (GGE). In this work we argue that the breakdown of the GGE can be attributed to the failure of the generalized eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (GETH), which has been the main candidate for explaining the validity of the GGE. We provide explicit counterexamples to the GETH and argue that generally it does not hold in models with multiple particle species. Therefore, there is no reason to assume that the GGE should describe the long time limit of observables in these integrable models.

DOI
10.1088/1742-5468/2014/09/p09026

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It has been recently observed for a particular quantum quench in the XXZ spin chain that local observables do not equilibrate to the predictions of the generalized Gibbs ensemble (GGE). In this work we argue that the breakdown of the GGE can be attributed to the failure of the generalized eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (GETH), which has been the main candidate for explaining the validity of the GGE. We provide explicit counterexamples to the GETH and argue that generally it does not hold in models with multiple particle species. Therefore, there is no reason to assume that the GGE should describe the long time limit of observables in these integrable models.
After a quench, observables in an integrable system may not relax to the standard thermal values, but can relax to the ones predicted by the generalized Gibbs ensemble (GGE) [M. Rigol et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 050405 (2007)]. The GGE has been shown to accurately describe observables in various one-dimensional integrable systems, but the origin of its success is not fully understood. Here we introduce a microcanonical version of the GGE and provide a justification of the GGE based on a generalized interpretation of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, which was previously introduced to explain thermalization of nonintegrable systems. We study relaxation after a quench of one-dimensional hard-core bosons in an optical lattice. Exact numerical calculations for up to 10 particles on 50 lattice sites (≈10(10) eigenstates) validate our approach.
Abstract The generalized Gibbs ensemble (GGE) was introduced ten years ago to describe observables in isolated integrable quantum systems after equilibration. Since then, the GGE has been demonstrated to be a powerful tool to predict the outcome of the relaxation dynamics of few-body observables in a variety of integrable models, a process we call generalized thermalization. This review discusses several fundamental aspects of the GGE and generalized thermalization in integrable systems. In particular, we focus on questions such as: which observables equilibrate to the GGE predictions and who should play the role of the bath; what conserved quantities can be used to construct the GGE; what are the differences between generalized thermalization in noninteracting systems and in interacting systems mappable to noninteracting ones; why is it that the GGE works when traditional ensembles of statistical mechanics fail. Despite a lot of interest in these questions in recent years, no definite answers have been given. We review results for the XX model and for the transverse field Ising model. For the latter model, we also report original results and show that the GGE describes spin–spin correlations over the entire system. This makes apparent that there is no need to trace out a part of the system in real space for equilibration to occur and for the GGE to apply. In the past, a spectral decomposition of the weights of various statistical ensembles revealed that generalized eigenstate thermalization occurs in the XX model (hard-core bosons). Namely, eigenstates of the Hamiltonian with similar distributions of conserved quantities have similar expectation values of few-spin observables. Here we show that generalized eigenstate thermalization also occurs in the transverse field Ising model.
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 state described by a generalized Gibbs ensemble (GGE) instead of thermal equilibrium. We prove that a generalized version of the strong ETH holds for noninteracting integrable systems with translation invariance. Our generalized ETH states that any pair of energy eigenstates with similar values of local conserved quantities looks similar with respect to local observables, such as local correlations. This result tells us that an integrable system relaxes to a GGE for any initial state that has subextensive fluctuations of macroscopic local conserved quantities. Contrary to the previous derivations of the GGE, it is not necessary to assume the cluster decomposition property for an initial state.
In this work we study the applicability of the local generalized Gibbs ensemble (GGE) to integrable one-dimensional systems with bound states. We find that the GGE, when defined using only local conserved quantities, fails to describe the long-time dynamics for most initial states, including eigenstates. We present our calculations by studying the attractive Lieb-Liniger gas and the XXZXXZXXZ magnet, although similar results may be obtained for other models.
We consider quantum quenches in the so-called q -boson lattice model. We argue that the Generalized Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis holds in this model, therefore the Generalized Gibbs Ensemble (GGE) gives a valid description of the stationary states in the long time limit. For a special class of initial states (which are the pure Fock states in the local basis) we are able to provide the GGE predictions for the resulting root densities. We also give predictions for the long-time limit of certain local operators. In the q → ∞ limit the calculations simplify considerably, the wave functions are given by Schur polynomials and the overlaps with the initial states can be written as simple determinants. In two cases we prove rigorously that the GGE prediction for the root density is correct. Moreover, we calculate the exact time dependence of a physical observable (the one-site Emptiness Formation Probability) for the quench starting from the state with exactly one particle per site. In the long-time limit the GGE prediction is recovered.
Abstract We revisit the question of whether and how the steady states arising after non-equilibrium time evolution in integrable models (and in particular in the XXZ spin chain) can be described by the so-called generalized Gibbs ensemble (GGE). Whereas it is known that the micro-canonical ensemble built on a complete set of charges correctly describes the long-time limit of local observables, it has been shown recently by Ilievski et al that the corresponding canonical ensemble is not well defined, and instead a different canonical ensemble was proposed in terms of particle occupation number operators. Here we provide an alternative construction by considering truncated GGEs (tGGEs) that include only a finite number of local and quasi-local conserved operators. It is shown that the tGGEs can approximate the steady states with arbitrary precision, i.e. all physical observables are exactly reproduced in the infinite truncation limit. We trace back the problems encountered in defining an untruncated GGE to the dependence of the associated Lagrange multipliers on the truncation index. Conversely, we show that this problem may be circumvented by considering a new set of (quasi)local charges which are linear combinations of the standard ones, and whose associated Lagrange multipliers are well-defined state functions. Our general arguments are applied to concrete quench situations in the XXZ chain, where the initial states are simple two-site or four-site product states. Depending on the quench we find that numerical results for the local correlators can be obtained with remarkable precision using truncated GGEs with only 10–100 charges.