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arXiv:1610.00101 · Physical review. E

Measuring effective temperatures in a generalized Gibbs ensemble

Laura Foini, Andrea Gambassi, Robert Konik, Leticia F. Cugliandolo

Published May 11, 2017• 34 citations
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Abstract

The local physical properties of an isolated quantum statistical system in the stationary state reached long after a quench are generically described by the Gibbs ensemble, which involves only its Hamiltonian and the temperature as a parameter. If the system is instead integrable, additional quantities conserved by the dynamics intervene in the description of the stationary state. The resulting generalized Gibbs ensemble involves a number of temperature-like parameters, the determination of which is practically difficult. Here we argue that in a number of simple models these parameters can be effectively determined by using fluctuation-dissipation relationships between response and correlation functions of natural observables, quantities which are accessible in experiments.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.95.052116

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The local physical properties of an isolated quantum statistical system in the stationary state reached long after a quench are generically described by the Gibbs ensemble, which involves only its Hamiltonian and the temperature as a parameter. If the system is instead integrable, additional quantities conserved by the dynamics intervene in the description of the stationary state. The resulting generalized Gibbs ensemble involves a number of temperature-like parameters, the determination of which is practically difficult. Here we argue that in a number of simple models these parameters can be effectively determined by using fluctuation-dissipation relationships between response and correlation functions of natural observables, quantities which are accessible in experiments.
Quantum integrable models display a rich variety of non-thermal excited states with unusual properties. The most common way to probe them is by performing a quantum quench, i.e., by letting a many-body initial state unitarily evolve with an integrable Hamiltonian. At late times these systems are locally described by a generalized Gibbs ensemble with as many effective temperatures as their local conserved quantities. The experimental measurement of this macroscopic number of temperatures remains elusive. Here we show that they can be obtained for the Bose gas in one spatial dimension by probing the dynamical structure factor of the system after the quench and by employing a generalized fluctuation-dissipation theorem that we provide. Our procedure allows us to completely reconstruct the stationary state of a quantum integrable system from state-of-the-art experimental observations.
We consider dynamic (non-equal-time) correlation functions of local observables after a quantum quench. We show that, in the absence of long-range interactions in the final Hamiltonian, the dynamics is determined by the same ensemble that describes static (equal-time) correlations. For many integrable models, static correlation functions of local observables after a quantum quench relax to stationary values, which are described by a generalized Gibbs ensemble. The same generalized Gibbs ensemble then determines dynamic correlation functions, and the basic form of the fluctuation dissipation theorem holds, although the absorption and emission spectra are not simply related as in the thermal case. For quenches in the transverse field Ising chain, we derive explicit expressions for the time evolution of dynamic order parameter correlators after a quench.
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.
Predicting the stationary behavior of observables in isolated many-body quantum systems is a central challenge in quantum statistical mechanics. While one can often use the Gibbs ensemble, which is simple to compute, there are many scenarios where this is not possible and one must instead use another ensemble, such as the diagonal, microcanonical or generalized Gibbs ensembles. However, these all require detailed information about the energy or other conserved quantities to be constructed. Here we propose a general and computationally easy approach to determine the stationary probability distribution of observables with few outcomes. Interpreting coarse measurements at equilibrium as noisy communication channels, we provide general analytical arguments in favor of the applicability of a maximum entropy principle for this class of observables. We show that the resulting theory accurately predicts stationary probability distributions without detailed microscopic information like the energy eigenstates. Extensive numerical experiments on 7 non-weakly interacting spin-1/2 Hamiltonians demonstrate the broad applicability and robustness of this framework in both quantum integrable and chaotic models.
The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis conjectures that for a thermodynamically large system in one of its energy eigenstates, the reduced density matrix describing any finite subsystem is determined solely by a set of relevant conserved quantities. In a chaotic quantum system, only the energy is expected to play that role and hence eigenstates appear locally thermal. Integrable systems, on the other hand, possess an extensive number of such conserved quantities and therefore the reduced density matrix requires specification of all the corresponding parameters (generalized Gibbs ensemble). However, here we show by unbiased statistical sampling of the individual eigenstates with a given finite energy density that the local description of an overwhelming majority of these states of even such an integrable system is actually Gibbs-like, i.e., requires only the energy density of the eigenstate. Rare eigenstates that cannot be represented by the Gibbs ensemble can also be sampled efficiently by our method and their local properties are then shown to be described by appropriately truncated generalized Gibbs ensembles. We further show that the presence of these rare eigenstates differentiates the model from the chaotic case and leads to the system being described by a generalized Gibbs ensemble at long time under a unitary dynamics following a sudden quench, even when the initial state is a typical (Gibbs-like) eigenstate of the prequench Hamiltonian.
The description of the non-equilibrium dynamics of isolated quantum many-body systems within the framework of statistical mechanics is a fundamental open question. Conventional thermodynamical ensembles fail to describe the large class of systems that exhibit nontrivial conserved quantities, and generalized ensembles have been predicted to maximize entropy in these systems. We show experimentally that a degenerate one-dimensional Bose gas relaxes to a state that can be described by such a generalized ensemble. This is verified through a detailed study of correlation functions up to 10th order. The applicability of the generalized ensemble description for isolated quantum many-body systems points to a natural emergence of classical statistical properties from the microscopic unitary quantum evolution.