The nonequilibrium dynamics of generic quantum systems denies a fully understanding up to now, even if the thermalization in the long-time asymptotic state has been explained by the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis which proposes a universal form of the observable matrix elements in the eigenbasis of the Hamiltonian. In this paper, we study the form of the quantum state, i.e., of the density matrix elements. We propose that the density matrix has also a universal form in chaotic systems, which is used to understand the nonequilibrium dynamics in the whole time scale, from the transient regime to the long-time steady limit, and then extends the applicability of eigenstate thermalization hypothesis to true nonequilibrium phenomena such as nonequilibrium steady states. Our assumption is numerically tested in various models, and its intimate relation to the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis is discussed.
The nonequilibrium dynamics of generic quantum systems denies a fully understanding up to now, even if the thermalization in the long-time asymptotic state has been explained by the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis which proposes a universal form of the observable matrix elements in the eigenbasis of the Hamiltonian. In this paper, we study the form of the quantum state, i.e., of the density matrix elements. We propose that the density matrix has also a universal form in chaotic systems, which is used to understand the nonequilibrium dynamics in the whole time scale, from the transient regime to the long-time steady limit, and then extends the applicability of eigenstate thermalization hypothesis to true nonequilibrium phenomena such as nonequilibrium steady states. Our assumption is numerically tested in various models, and its intimate relation to the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis is discussed.
We consider the statistical properties of eigenstates of the time-evolution operator in chaotic many-body quantum systems. Our focus is on correlations between eigenstates that are specific to spatially extended systems and that characterize entanglement dynamics and operator spreading. In order to isolate these aspects of dynamics from those arising as a result of local conservation laws, we consider Floquet systems in which there are no conserved densities. The correlations associated with scrambling of quantum information lie outside the standard framework established by the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH). In particular, ETH provides a statistical description of matrix elements of local operators between pairs of eigenstates, whereas the aspects of dynamics we are concerned with arise from correlations among sets of four or more eigenstates. We establish the simplest correlation function that captures these correlations and discuss features of its behavior that are expected to be universal at long distances and low energies. We also propose a maximum-entropy ansatz for the joint distribution of a small number n of eigenstates. In the case n = 2 , this ansatz reproduces ETH. For n = 4 it captures both the growth with time of entanglement between subsystems, as characterized by the purity of the time-evolution operator, and also operator spreading, as characterized by the behavior of the out-of-time-order correlator. We test these ideas by comparing results from Monte Carlo sampling of our ansatz with exact diagonalization studies of Floquet quantum circuits. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
This review gives a pedagogical introduction to the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), its basis, and its implications to statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. In the first part, ETH is introduced as a natural extension of ideas from quantum chaos and random matrix theory (RMT). To this end, we present a brief overview of classical and quantum chaos, as well as RMT and some of its most important predictions. The latter include the statistics of energy levels, eigenstate components, and matrix elements of observables. Building on these, we introduce the ETH and show that it allows one to describe thermalization in isolated chaotic systems without invoking the notion of an external bath. We examine numerical evidence of eigenstate thermalization from studies of many-body lattice systems. We also introduce the concept of a quench as a means of taking isolated systems out of equilibrium, and discuss results of numerical experiments on quantum quenches. The second part of the review explores the implications of quantum chaos and ETH to thermodynamics. Basic thermodynamic relations are derived, including the second law of thermodynamics, the fundamental thermodynamic relation, fluctuation theorems, the fluctuation–dissipation relation, and the Einstein and Onsager relations. In particular, it is shown that quantum chaos allows one to prove these relations for individual Hamiltonian eigenstates and thus extend them to arbitrary stationary statistical ensembles. In some cases, it is possible to extend their regimes of applicability beyond the standard thermal equilibrium domain. We then show how one can use these relations to obtain nontrivial universal energy distributions in continuously driven systems. At the end of the review, we briefly discuss the relaxation dynamics and description after relaxation of integrable quantum systems, for which ETH is violated. We present results from numerical experiments and analytical studies of quantum quenches at integrability. We introduce the concept of the generalized Gibbs ensemble and discuss its connection with ideas of prethermalization in weakly interacting systems.
Understanding how out-of-equilibrium states thermalize under quantum unitary dynamics is an important problem in many-body physics. In this work, we propose a statistical Ansatz for the matrix elements of non-equilibrium initial states in the energy eigenbasis, in order to describe such evolution. The approach is inspired by the Eigenstate Thermalisation Hypothesis (ETH) but the proposed Ansatz exhibits different scaling. Importantly, we point out the exponentially small cross-correlations between the observable and the initial state matrix elements that determine relaxation dynamics toward equilibrium. We numerically verify scaling and cross-correlation, point out the emergent universality of the high-frequency behavior, and outline possible generalizations.
Phenomena in quantum chaotic systems such as spectral fluctuations are known to be described remarkably well by the random matrix theory (RMT) in small energy intervals and over large time scales. However, in exchange for analytical tractability, RMT has been constructed to leave out an important element of realistic physical systems { the notion of locality. Since quantum information propagates at a finite speed in a spatially-extended quantum chaotic system, there exists time scales before which RMT is effective. How do we describe the non-equilibrium quantum dynamics at intermediate timescales which are much longer than the local relaxation time but too short for RMT to apply? What are the signatures of many-body quantum chaotic systems beyond the description of RMT? In this thesis, we address these questions by analysing minimal models that incorporate a notion of locality and at the same time retain some analytical tractability of RMT. More specifically, we study Floquet quantum circuits that are random in space but periodic in time. These circuits consist of local and random quantum gates that act on a q-state `spin' at each site. After a brief review of classical chaos, quantum chaos, and quantum circuits in Chapter 1, we present three main results. In Chapter 2, we formulate a diagrammatical approach for computing ensemble averages of observables over random unitary circuits, and derive exact results on spectral statistics and dynamical observables for a Floquet circuit in the large-q limit. In Chapter 3, we further investigate the spectral statistics in spatiallyextended many-body quantum chaotic systems by computing the spectral form factor K(t) analytically and numerically. We show that K(t) follows the RMT description at times longer than the Thouless time tTh and identify the scaling of tTh at the large-q limit of a Floquet circuit. In Chapter 4, we discuss eigenstate correlations for spatially-extended many-body quantum chaotic systems, in terms of the statistical properties of matrix elements of local observables. While the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) is known to give an excellent description of these quantities, the phenomenon of scrambling and the butterfly effect imply structure beyond ETH. We determine analytically and verify numerically the universal form of this structure at long distances and small eigenvalue separations for Floquet systems.
The question of how statistical physics can be seen to emerge from unitary quantum dynamics goes back to Schrödinger and von Neumann, however has been reaffirmed as a topic of importance due to recent advances in experimental capabilities, allowing the observation of the unitary evolution of many-particle systems over long periods of time. Understanding why such a system evolves to the specific thermal equilibrium state, effectively described by a relevant thermodynamic ensemble, has thus seen significantly more interest in recent years. Furthermore, observations of the dynamics of such systems open questions on the route to equilibrium, and subsequent fluctuations. In this thesis I will develop an approach to this problem, taking as a starting point the non-integrability of the system under study, which leads to a generic model in terms of random matrix theory (RMT), and more generally, chaotic wavefunctions. In the formulation of these methods, special attention is paid to the form of local observables of quantum systems, and an approach to their description is developed in terms of correlation functions of chaotic wavefunctions. From this approach a key conjecture in the understanding of thermalization, the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), is derived in full, and the dynamical behaviour of such observables is obtained analytically. Further, I will show that emergent classical behaviour can be observed in the form of a fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT) of Brownian processes. This is exploited to develop an experimental proposal to measure the ‘complexity’ of a quantum device, by experimentally obtaining its effective Hilbert space dimension in terms of a fully connected system. Finally, quantum jump trajectories, describing stroboscopic projective measurements of local observables are studied, and shown to display classical Brownian dynamics in the form of a Markov process. Throughout this thesis, exact diagonalization calculations of realistic quantum spin systems are used to confirm analytical results.
Abstract In this paper, we investigate the distinctions between dynamical quantum chaotic systems and random models from the perspective of observable properties, particularly focusing on the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH). Through numerical simulations, we find that for dynamical systems, the envelope function of off-diagonal elements of observables exhibits an exponential decay at large ΔE, while for randomized models, it tends to be flat. We demonstrate that the correlations of chaotic eigenstates, originating from the delicate structures of Hamiltonians, play a crucial role in the non-trivial structure of the envelope function. Furthermore, we analyze the numerical results from the perspective of the dynamical group elements in Hamiltonians. Our findings highlight the importance of correlations in physical chaotic systems and provide insights into the deviations from random matrix theory (RMT) predictions. These understandings offer valuable directions for future research.