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arXiv:1909.02841 · SciPost Physics

Front dynamics in the XY chain after local excitations

Viktor Eisler, Florian Maislinger

Published Mar 6, 2020• 31 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the time evolution of magnetization and entanglement for initial states with local excitations, created upon the ferromagnetic ground state of the XY chain. For excitations corresponding to a single or two well separated domain walls, the magnetization profile has a simple hydrodynamic limit, which has a standard interpretation in terms of quasiparticles. In contrast, for a spin-flip we obtain an interference term, which has to do with the nonlocality of the excitation in the fermionic basis. Surprisingly, for the single domain wall the hydrodynamic limit of the entropy and magnetization profiles are found to be directly related. Furthermore, the entropy profile is additive for the double domain wall, whereas in case of the spin-flip excitation one has a nontrivial behaviour.

DOI
10.21468/scipostphys.8.3.037

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We study the time evolution of magnetization and entanglement for initial states with local excitations, created upon the ferromagnetic ground state of the XY chain. For excitations corresponding to a single or two well separated domain walls, the magnetization profile has a simple hydrodynamic limit, which has a standard interpretation in terms of quasiparticles. In contrast, for a spin-flip we obtain an interference term, which has to do with the nonlocality of the excitation in the fermionic basis. Surprisingly, for the single domain wall the hydrodynamic limit of the entropy and magnetization profiles are found to be directly related. Furthermore, the entropy profile is additive for the double domain wall, whereas in case of the spin-flip excitation one has a nontrivial behaviour.
We study the melting of domain walls in the ferromagnetic phase of the transverse Ising chain, created by flipping the order-parameter spins along one-half of the chain. If the initial state is excited by a local operator in terms of Jordan-Wigner fermions, the resulting longitudinal magnetization profiles have a universal character. Namely, after proper rescalings, the profiles in the noncritical Ising chain become identical to those obtained for a critical free-fermion chain starting from a step-like initial state. The relation holds exactly in the entire ferromagnetic phase of the Ising chain and can even be extended to the zero-field XY model by a duality argument. In contrast, for domain-wall excitations that are highly non-local in the fermionic variables, the universality of the magnetization profiles is lost. Nevertheless, for both cases we observe that the entanglement entropy asymptotically saturates at the ground-state value, suggesting a simple form of the steady state.
We study the spreading of entanglement produced by the time evolution of a local fermionic excitation created above the ground state of the XXZ chain. The resulting entropy profiles are investigated via density-matrix renormalization group calculations, and compared to a quasiparticle ansatz. In particular, we assume that the entanglement is dominantly carried by spinon excitations traveling at different velocities, and the entropy profile is reproduced by a probabilistic expression involving the density fraction of the spinons reaching the subsystem. The ansatz works well in the gapless phase for moderate values of the XXZ anisotropy, eventually deteriorating as other types of quasiparticle excitations gain spectral weight. Furthermore, if the initial state is excited by a local Majorana fermion, we observe a nontrivial rescaling of the entropy profiles. This effect is further investigated in a conformal field theory framework, carrying out calculations for the Luttinger liquid theory. Finally, we also consider excitations creating an antiferromagnetic domain wall in the gapped phase of the chain, and find again a modified quasiparticle ansatz with a multiplicative factor.
We investigate the dynamics of the XXZ spin chain after a geometric quench, which is realized by connecting two half chains prepared in their ground states with zero and maximum magnetizations, respectively. The profiles of magnetization after the subsequent time evolution are studied numerically by density-matrix renormalization group methods, and a comparison to the predictions of generalized hydrodynamics yields a very good agreement. We also calculate the profiles of entanglement entropy and propose an ansatz for the noninteracting XX case, based on arguments from conformal field theory. In the general interacting case, the propagation of the entropy front is studied numerically both before and after the reflection from the chain boundaries. Finally, our results for the magnetization fluctuations indicate a leading order proportionality relation to the entanglement entropy.
Abstract We revisit the out-of-equilibrium physics arising during the unitary evolution of a one-dimensional XXZ spin chain initially prepared in a domain wall state ∣ψ0⟩=∣⋯↑↑↓↓… ⟩\vert \psi _0\rangle =\vert \dots \uparrow \uparrow \downarrow \downarrow \dots \rangle∣ψ0​⟩=∣⋯↑↑↓↓…⟩ | ψ 0 ⟩ = | ⋯ ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ⋯ ⟩ . In absence of interactions, we review the exact lattice calculation of several conserved quantities, including e.g. the magnetization and the spin current profiles. At large distances x and times t, we show how these quantities allow for a ballistic scaling behavior in terms of the scaling variable ζ=x/t\zeta = x/tζ=x/t ζ = x / t , with exactly computable scaling functions. In such a limit of large space-time scales, we show that the asymptotic behavior of the system is suitably captured by the local occupation function of spinless fermionic modes, whose semi-classical evolution in phase space is given by a Euler hydrodynamic equation. Similarly, analytical results for the asymptotic fronts dynamics are obtained for the interacting chain via Generalized Hydrodynamics. In the last part of the work, we include large-scale quantum fluctuations on top of the semi-classical hydrodynamic background in the form of a conformal field theory that lives along the evolving Fermi contour. With this procedure, dubbed quantum generalized hydrodynamics, it is possible to obtain exact asymptotic results for the entanglement spreading during the melting dynamics.
We study the time evolution of entanglement created by local or extended excitations upon the ground state of a free-fermion chain. A single particle or hole excitation produces a single bit of excess entropy for large times and subsystem lengths. In case of a double hole, some of the coherence between the excitations is preserved and the excess entropy becomes additive only for large hole separations. In contrast, the coherence is always lost for particle–hole excitations. Multiple hole excitations on a completely filled chain are also investigated. We find that for an extended contiguous hole the excess entropy scales logarithmically with the size, whereas the increase is linear for finite separations between the holes.
We consider the XXZ spin chain with a magnetic field gradient and study the profiles of the magnetization as well as the entanglement entropy. For a slowly varying field, it is shown that, by means of a local density approximation, the ground-state magnetization profile can be obtained with standard Bethe ansatz techniques. Furthermore, it is argued that the low-energy description of the theory is given by a Luttinger liquid with slowly varying parameters. This allows us to obtain a very good approximation of the entanglement profile using a recently introduced technique of conformal field theory in curved spacetime. Finally, the front dynamics is also studied after the gradient field has been switched off, following arguments of generalized hydrodynamics for integrable systems. While for the XX chain the hydrodynamic solution can be found analytically, the XXZ case appears to be more complicated and the magnetization profiles are recovered only around the edge of the front via an approximate numerical solution.