Understanding the general principles underlying strongly interacting quantum states out of equilibrium is one of the most important tasks of current theoretical physics.With experiments accessing the intricate dynamics of many-body quantum systems, it is paramount to develop powerful methods that encode the emergent physics.Up to now, the strong dichotomy observed between integrable and nonintegrable evolutions made an overarching theory difficult to build, especially for transport phenomena where spacetime profiles are drastically different.We present a novel framework for studying transport in integrable systems: hydrodynamics with infinitely many conservation laws.This bridges the conceptual gap between integrable and nonintegrable quantum dynamics, and gives powerful tools for accurate studies of spacetime profiles.We apply it to the description of energy transport between heat baths, and provide a full description of the current-carrying nonequilibrium steady state and the transition regions in a family of models including the Lieb-Liniger model of interacting Bose gases, realized in experiments.
Understanding the general principles underlying strongly interacting quantum states out of equilibrium is one of the most important tasks of current theoretical physics.With experiments accessing the intricate dynamics of many-body quantum systems, it is paramount to develop powerful methods that encode the emergent physics.Up to now, the strong dichotomy observed between integrable and nonintegrable evolutions made an overarching theory difficult to build, especially for transport phenomena where spacetime profiles are drastically different.We present a novel framework for studying transport in integrable systems: hydrodynamics with infinitely many conservation laws.This bridges the conceptual gap between integrable and nonintegrable quantum dynamics, and gives powerful tools for accurate studies of spacetime profiles.We apply it to the description of energy transport between heat baths, and provide a full description of the current-carrying nonequilibrium steady state and the transition regions in a family of models including the Lieb-Liniger model of interacting Bose gases, realized in experiments.
Understanding the general principles underlying strongly interacting quantum states out of equilibrium is one of the most important tasks of current theoretical physics.With experiments accessing the intricate dynamics of many-body quantum systems, it is paramount to develop powerful methods that encode the emergent physics.Up to now, the strong dichotomy observed between integrable and nonintegrable evolutions made an overarching theory difficult to build, especially for transport phenomena where spacetime profiles are drastically different.We present a novel framework for studying transport in integrable systems: hydrodynamics with infinitely many conservation laws.This bridges the conceptual gap between integrable and nonintegrable quantum dynamics, and gives powerful tools for accurate studies of spacetime profiles.We apply it to the description of energy transport between heat baths, and provide a full description of the current-carrying nonequilibrium steady state and the transition regions in a family of models including the Lieb-Liniger model of interacting Bose gases, realized in experiments.
Whether and how a system approaches equilibrium is a central issue in nonequilibrium statistical physics, underpinning our understanding of both thermalization and heat transport. Bogoliubov's three-stage (initial, kinetic, and hydrodynamic) evolution hypothesis provides a qualitative framework, but quantitative advances have mostly been restricted to near-integrable systems such as dilute gases. In this work, we investigate the relaxation dynamics of a one-dimensional diatomic hard-point gas and present a phase diagram that comprehensively characterizes relaxation behavior across the full parameter space, from near-integrable to far-from-integrable regimes. We first analyze thermalization (local energy relaxation in nonequilibrium states) and identify three universal dynamical regimes: (1) In the near-integrable regime, kinetic processes dominate (initial + kinetic phase), local energy relaxation decays exponentially, and the thermalization time τ scales with perturbation strength δ as τ ∝ δ − 2 . (2) In the far-from-integrable regime, hydrodynamic effects dominate (initial + hydrodynamic phase), local energy relaxation follows power-law decay, and thermalization time scales linearly with system size N . (3) In the intermediate regime, Bogoliubov phase emerges, marked by the transition from kinetic to hydrodynamic relaxation. The phase diagram further reveals that hydrodynamic behavior can emerge even in small systems when the system is sufficiently far from the integrable regime, challenging the conventional view that such effects are only significant in large systems. In the thermodynamic limit, the system's relaxation behavior depends on the order in which the limits ( N → ∞ or δ → 0 ) are taken. We then turn to heat transport (decay of heat-current fluctuations in equilibrium) and demonstrate that its behavior is fully consistent with the thermalization process, leading to the first unified theoretical description of thermalization and heat transport. Our results establish a comprehensive view of relaxation in classical many-body systems and suggest a route for studying similar dynamics in quantum systems, highlighting universal scaling laws and the interplay of kinetic and hydrodynamic processes across integrability regimes.
In this thesis, we investigated the evolution of low-dimensional quantum many-body systems through the lenses of their dynamics. The main tools we used are unitary dynamics and kinetic theory. The interest in this class of systems derives from the fact that they are dominated by the effects of interactions between fundamental constituents. In one dimension, the situation is even more dramatic: even the smallest interaction leads to a description that cannot be cast into a small perturbation of the initial model. Even though, a particular set of systems still allows for exact solutions; hence, they are deemed integrable and they allow for an infinite number of conserved currents. A simple way, that can also be performed experimentally, to drive many-body systems outside of the equilibrium is called quantum quench. It consists in switching instantaneously the parameters of the theory after the system is at the equilibrium and measuring an observable after the driving has occurred. Our contributions to the field amount to providing a full characterization of the evolution of the observables of an integrable system after a global quantum quench. We were also able to extend these results, valid in principle for relativistic theories, to the Lieb-Liniger model, prominent for the description of experimental setups, by the means of non-relativistic limit. For two-dimensional models, interactions are not changing the system from its foundations, although there are unexpected effects. A paradigmatic example is graphene: in a two-dimensional system where carriers are charged and massless, namely their dispersion relation does not have any gap and particles and holes can be freely excited from the thermal state, it is predicted that they are interacting via Coulomb force hundreds of times more than normal electrons in void. Hence, the system behaves in a completely different way from electrons in quantum electrodynamics: for instance, there are additional modes which are called plasmons that are also massless but neutral. They represent collective excitations of the model, as oscillations in the local density of charge. This system is not integrable but still strongly interacting; solving it as we do for one-dimensional systems is not possible. The role of conservation laws is a common theme of this thesis. In the example above exposed, total charge, momentum and energy are conserved in the pristine model, but in presence of impurities and defects they dissipate. The evolution of such quantities can though be derived exactly by the means of hydrodynamics. We were able to derive the equations that rule their evolution in time for any electronic system with two bands touching at the Dirac point. They are generalizations of the celebrated Navier-Stokes equations, and they differ from them only outside the compressible regime. We are able to show that the transport properties in the hydrodynamic regime strongly differ from the usual ballistic picture popularized by Drude and his model; this is captured for instance by violations of the Wiedemann-Franz ratio. Moreover, we prove that the role of interaction is prominent in the viscosity of these fluids.
Generalized hydrodynamics is a framework to study the large scale dynamics of integrable models, special fine-tuned one-dimensional many-body systems that possess an infinite number of local conserved quantities. Unlike classical models, where the microscopic origins of generalized hydrodynamics are better understood, in quantum models it can only be derived using the hydrodynamic formalism. Using the paradigmatic and experimentally relevant repulsive Lieb-Liniger model as an example, this thesis introduces a new viewpoint on the dynamics of quantum integrable models by introducing so-called semi-classical Bethe models. These classical integrable models act as an intermediate description between the microscopic quantum realm and the macroscopic generalized hydrodynamics. After introducing these models and discussing their properties, we study the generalized hydrodynamics equation using new tools and show that solutions to the Euler generalized hydrodynamics equation of the Lieb-Liniger model exist, are unique and do not develop gradient catastrophes. Finally, we discuss new insights into the physics governing the diffusive correction, which, contrary to prior belief, is not described by a Navier-Stokes-like equation. Focusing on the main intuitive ideas, the thesis aims to provide a self-contained overview over these exciting new developments on generalized hydrodynamics.
Understanding the entanglement structure of out-of-equilibrium many-body systems is a challenging, yet revealing task. Here, the author investigates the entanglement dynamics after a quench from a piecewise homogeneous state. This is the prototypical setup for studying quantum transport. By using a generalized hydrodynamic approach for integrable models and the quasiparticle picture for the entanglement dynamics, he conjectures a formula for the entanglement production rate after joining two semi-infinite homogeneous states, as well as for the steady-state entanglement entropy of a finite region. Interestingly, both quantities are determined by the physics, describing the interface between the two reservoirs.
Abstract We review the non-equilibrium dynamics of many-body quantum systems after a quantum quench with spatial inhomogeneities, either in the Hamiltonian or in the initial state. We focus on integrable and many-body localized systems that fail to self-thermalize in isolation and for which the standard hydrodynamical picture breaks down. The emphasis is on universal dynamics, non-equilibrium steady states and new dynamical phases of matter, and on phase transitions far from thermal equilibrium. We describe how the infinite number of conservation laws of integrable and many-body localized systems lead to complex non-equilibrium states beyond the traditional dogma of statistical mechanics.