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arXiv:2303.06495 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Thermalization of a disordered interacting system under an interaction quench

Eric Dohner, Hanna Terletska, Herbert F. Fotso

Published Oct 3, 2023• 5 citations
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Abstract

Although most studies of strongly correlated systems away from equilibrium have focused on clean systems, it is well known that disorder may significantly modify observed properties in various nontrivial ways. The nonequilibrium interplay of interaction and disorder in these systems thus requires further investigation. In the present paper, we use the recently developed nonequilibrium $\text{DMFT}+\text{CPA}$ embedding scheme, that combines both the dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) and the coherent potential approximation (CPA) nonequilibrium extensions, to characterize the relaxation and the thermalization of a disordered interacting system described by the Anderson-Hubbard model under an interaction quench. The system, initially in equilibrium at a given temperature, has the interaction abruptly switched from zero to a finite value at a given time. To investigate the role of disorder, we use our effective medium approach to calculate, for different values of the final interaction and of the disorder strength, the distribution functions as the system evolves in time. This allows us to determine the effective temperature after the quench and to analyze the effects of disorder on the thermalization for various interaction strengths. We find that, for moderate interactions after the interaction quench, disorder can tune the final temperature of the system across a broad range of values with increased disorder strength leading to lower effective temperature.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.108.144202

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Although most studies of strongly correlated systems away from equilibrium have focused on clean systems, it is well known that disorder may significantly modify observed properties in various nontrivial ways. The nonequilibrium interplay of interaction and disorder in these systems thus requires further investigation. In the present paper, we use the recently developed nonequilibrium DMFT+CPA\text{DMFT}+\text{CPA}DMFT+CPA embedding scheme, that combines both the dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) and the coherent potential approximation (CPA) nonequilibrium extensions, to characterize the relaxation and the thermalization of a disordered interacting system described by the Anderson-Hubbard model under an interaction quench. The system, initially in equilibrium at a given temperature, has the interaction abruptly switched from zero to a finite value at a given time. To investigate the role of disorder, we use our effective medium approach to calculate, for different values of the final interaction and of the disorder strength, the distribution functions as the system evolves in time. This allows us to determine the effective temperature after the quench and to analyze the effects of disorder on the thermalization for various interaction strengths. We find that, for moderate interactions after the interaction quench, disorder can tune the final temperature of the system across a broad range of values with increased disorder strength leading to lower effective temperature.
We study the nonequilibrium dynamics of a binary disordered alloy when it is subjected to an interaction quench. Our study uses a nonequilibrium embedding scheme (DMFT+CPA) that combines the capacity of DMFT (dynamical mean field theory) to treat strongly correlated systems and the capacity of CPA (coherent potential approximation) to treat disordered systems, to effectively address the interplay of disorder and interaction for the nonequilibrium system. Our solution is applied on the equilibrium binary disordered and interacting alloy for the calculation of the density of states. This equilibrium density of states shows the modifications of the disorder-driven gap by the interaction and that of the interaction-driven Mott gap by the disorder. Next, we assess the relaxation of the system that is initially in equilibrium at a given temperature, and then abruptly has its interaction strength changed from zero to a finite value at which it is kept constant. The system undergoes a short time transient and then settles into a long-time state in a process that depends in a nontrivial manner on the disorder and interaction strength. In addition, we calculate the effective temperature of the system after it has gone through its initial transient and settled into its long-time state. The long-time effective temperature is increased with increasing final interaction strength. However, for a given final interaction, the final temperature can be tuned by the disorder strength over a broad range, with stronger disorder leading to lower temperature. Altogether, the results illustrate the nontrivial interplay between disorder and interaction for a binary alloy away from equilibrium.
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We present a solution for the nonequilibrium dynamics of an interacting disordered system. The approach adapts the combination of the equilibrium dynamical mean-field theory and the equilibrium coherent potential approximation methods to the nonequilibrium many-body formalism, using the Kadanoff-Baym-Keldysh complex time contour, for the dynamics of interacting disordered systems away from equilibrium. We use our time domain solution to obtain the equilibrium density of states of the disordered interacting system described by the Anderson-Hubbard model, bypassing the necessity for the cumbersome analytical continuation process. We further apply the nonequilibrium solution to the interaction quench problem for an isolated disordered system. Here, the interaction is abruptly changed from zero (noninteracting system) to another constant (finite) value at which it is subsequently kept. We observe via the time dependence of the potential, kinetic, and total energies the effect of disorder on the relaxation of the system as a function of final interaction strength. The real-time approach has the potential to shed light on the fundamental role of disorder in the nonequilibrium dynamics of interacting quantum systems.
We study quench dynamics of the Bose-Hubbard model by exact diagonalization. Initially, the system is at thermal equilibrium and of a finite temperature. The system is then quenched by changing the on-site interaction strength UUU suddenly. Both the single-quench and double-quench scenarios are considered. In the former case, the time-averaged density matrix and the real-time evolution are investigated. It is found that though the system thermalizes only in a very narrow range of the quenched value of UUU, it does equilibrate or relax well into a much larger range. Most importantly, it is proven that this is guaranteed for some typical observables in the thermodynamic limit. In order to test whether it is possible to distinguish the unitarily evolving density matrix from the time-averaged (thus time-independent), fully decohered density matrix, a second quench is considered. It turns out that the answer is affirmative or negative depending on whether the intermediate value of UUU is zero or not.
We investigate the time evolution of correlations in the Bose-Hubbard model following a quench from the superfluid to the Mott insulator. For large values of the final interaction strength the system approaches a distinctly nonequilibrium steady state that bears strong memory of the initial conditions. In contrast, when the final interaction strength is comparable to the hopping, the correlations are rather well approximated by those at thermal equilibrium. The existence of two distinct nonequilibrium regimes is surprising given the nonintegrability of the Bose-Hubbard model. We relate this phenomenon to the role of quasiparticle interactions in the Mott insulator.
We introduce an extension of the nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory to incorporate the effects of static random disorder in the dynamics of a many-particle system by integrating out different disorder configurations resulting in an effective time-dependent density-density interaction. We use this method to study the nonequilibrium transient dynamics of a system described by the Fermi Anderson-Hubbard model following an interaction and disorder quench. The method recovers the solution of the disorder-free case for which the system exhibits qualitatively distinct dynamical behaviors in the weak-coupling (prethermalization) and strong-coupling regimes (collapse-and-revival oscillations). However, we find that weak random disorder promotes thermalization. In the weak-coupling regime, the jump in the quasiparticle weight in the prethermal regime is suppressed by random disorder, while in the strong-coupling regime, random disorder reduces the amplitude of the quasiparticle weight oscillations. These results highlight the importance of disorder in the dynamics of realistic many-particle systems.