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arXiv:1803.02909 · Physical Review A

Hierarchical relaxation dynamics in a tilted two-band Bose-Hubbard model

Jayson G. Cosme

Published Apr 11, 2018• 6 citations
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Abstract

We numerically examine slow and hierarchical relaxation dynamics of interacting bosons described by a tilted two-band Bose-Hubbard model. The system is found to exhibit signatures of quantum chaos within the spectrum and the validity of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis for relevant physical observables is demonstrated for certain parameter regimes. Using the truncated Wigner representation in the semiclassical limit of the system, dynamics of relevant observables reveal hierarchical relaxation and the appearance of prethermalized states is studied from the perspective of statistics of the underlying mean-field trajectories. The observed prethermalization scenario can be attributed to different stages of glassy dynamics in the mode-time configuration space due to dynamical phase transition between ergodic and nonergodic trajectories.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.97.043610

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We numerically examine slow and hierarchical relaxation dynamics of interacting bosons described by a tilted two-band Bose-Hubbard model. The system is found to exhibit signatures of quantum chaos within the spectrum and the validity of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis for relevant physical observables is demonstrated for certain parameter regimes. Using the truncated Wigner representation in the semiclassical limit of the system, dynamics of relevant observables reveal hierarchical relaxation and the appearance of prethermalized states is studied from the perspective of statistics of the underlying mean-field trajectories. The observed prethermalization scenario can be attributed to different stages of glassy dynamics in the mode-time configuration space due to dynamical phase transition between ergodic and nonergodic trajectories.
We investigate the nonequilibrium dynamics of the bosonic Hubbard model starting from inhomogeneous superfluid or Mott insulator initial states using the truncated Wigner approximation (TWA). We find that the relaxation of the system develops in two steps for sufficiently large interaction strengths: after a fast relaxation the system gets caught in metastable prethermalized states that precede the true equilibrium state. We find that the lifetime of these prethermalized states increases by several orders of magnitude as we increase the on-site interaction strength beyond a threshold value. We show that the emergence of long-lived metastable states in the quantum dynamics is associated with an ergodic (active) to nonergodic (inactive) dynamical phase transition in the ensemble of classical trajectories that contribute to the semiclassical limit. This dynamical phase transition, which is very similar to that found in different classical models of glasses, is closely related to the dynamic heterogeneity of the classical relaxation.
Quantum chaos in isolated quantum systems is intimately linked to thermalization and the rapid relaxation of observables. Although the spectral properties of the chaotic phase in the tilted Bose-Hubbard model have been well characterized, the corresponding dynamical signatures across the transition to regularity remain less explored . In this work, we investigate this transition by analyzing the time evolution of the survival probability, the single-site entanglement entropy, and the half-chain imbalance. Our results reveal a clear hierarchy in the sensitivity of these observables: the relaxation value of the entanglement entropy varies smoothly as a function of the Hamiltonian parameters across the chaos-regular transition, while the imbalance exhibits a more pronounced distinction. Most notably, the survival probability emerges as the most robust indicator of the transition between chaos and regularity. When appropriately scaled, all three observables converge onto a common behavior as a function of the Hamiltonian parameters for different numbers of sites and bosons,enabling a universal characterization of the transition between chaotic and regular dynamics.
We investigate the nonequilibrium dynamics of the bosonic Hubbard model starting from inhomogeneous superfluid or Mott insulator initial states using the truncated Wigner approximation (TWA). We find that the relaxation of the system develops in two steps for sufficiently large interaction strengths: after a fast relaxation the system gets caught in metastable prethermalized states that precede the true equilibrium state. We find that the lifetime of these prethermalized states increases by several orders of magnitude as we increase the on-site interaction strength beyond a threshold value. We show that the emergence of long-lived metastable states in the quantum dynamics is associated with an ergodic (active) to nonergodic (inactive) dynamical phase transition in the ensemble of classical trajectories that contribute to the semiclassical limit. This dynamical phase transition, which is very similar to that found in different classical models of glasses, is closely related to the dynamic heterogeneity of the classical relaxation.
We numerically investigate the relaxation dynamics in an isolated quantum system of interacting bosons trapped in a double-well potential after an integrability breaking quench. Using the statistics of the spectrum, we identify the postquench Hamiltonian as nonchaotic and close to integrability over a wide range of interaction parameters. We demonstrate that the system exhibits thermalization in the context of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH). We also explore the possibility of an initial state to delocalize with respect to the eigenstates of the postquench Hamiltonian even for energies away from the middle of the spectrum. We observe distinct regimes of equilibration process depending on the initial energy. For low energies, the system rapidly relaxes in a single step to a thermal state. As the energy increases towards the middle of the spectrum, the relaxation dynamics exhibits prethermalization and the lifetime of the metastable states grows. Time evolution of the occupation numbers and the von Neumann entropy in the mode-partitioned system underpins the analyses of the relaxation dynamics.
Systems of interacting bosons in double-well potentials, modeled by two-site Bose-Hubbard models, are of significant theoretical and experimental interest and attracted intensive studies in contexts ranging from many-body physics and quantum dynamics to the onset of quantum chaos. In this work we systematically study a kicked two-site Bose-Hubbard model (Bose-Hubbard dimer) with the on-site potential difference being periodically modulated. Our model can be equivalently represented as a kicked Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model and thus displays different dynamical behaviors from the kicked-top model. By analyzing spectral statistics of Floquet operator, we unveil that the system undergoes a transition from regularity to chaos with increasing the interaction strength. Then based on semiclassical approximation and the analysis of R\'enyi entropy of coherent states in the basis of Floquet operator eigenstates, we reveal the local chaotic features of our model, which indicate the existence of integrable islands even in the deep chaotic regime. The semiclassical analysis also suggests that the system in chaotic regime may display different dynamical behavior depending on the choice of initial states. Finally, we demonstrate that dynamical signatures of chaos can be manifested by studying dynamical evolution of local operators and out-of-time-order correlation function as well as the entanglement entropy. Our numerical results exhibit the richness of dynamics of the kicked Bose-Hubbard dimer in both regular and chaotic regimes as the initial states are chosen as coherent spin states located in different locations of phase space.
Thermalization in quantum many-body systems typically unfolds over timescales governed by intrinsic relaxation mechanisms. Yet, its spatial aspect is less understood. We investigate this phenomenon in the nonequilibrium steady state (NESS) of a Bose-Hubbard chain subject to coherent driving and dissipation at its boundaries, a setup inspired by current designs in circuit quantum electrodynamics. The dynamical fingerprints of chaos in this NESS are probed using semiclassical out-of-time-order correlators within the truncated Wigner approximation. At intermediate drive strengths, we uncover a two-stage thermalization along the spatial dimension: phase coherence is rapidly lost near the drive, while amplitude relaxation occurs over much longer distances. This separation of scales gives rise to an extended hydrodynamic regime exhibiting anomalous temperature profiles, which we designate as a “prethermal” domain. At stronger drives, the system enters a nonthermal, non-chaotic finite-momentum condensate characterized by sub-Poissonian photon statistics and a spatially modulated phase profile, whose stability is undermined by quantum fluctuations. We explore the conditions underlying this protracted thermalization in space and argue that similar mechanisms are likely to emerge in a broad class of extended driven-dissipative systems. Thermalization in quantum many-body systems can unfold across space in surprising ways. The authors reveal nonequilibrium regimes in a driven-dissipative quantum chain, including a spatially emergent prethermal domain and a nonthermal condensate destabilized by quantum fluctuations, with broad implications for driven quantum platforms