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arXiv:2310.09140 · Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical

Thermalization of linear Fermi systems

Jose Reslen

Published Apr 12, 2024• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract The issue of thermalization in open quantum systems is explored from the perspective of fermion models with quadratic couplings and linear baths. Both the thermodynamic state and the stationary solution of the Lindblad equation are rendered as a matrix-product sequence following a reformulation in terms of underlying algebras, allowing to characterize a family of stationary solutions and determine the cases where they correspond to thermal states. This characterization provides insight into the operational mechanisms that lead the system to thermalization and their interplay with mechanisms that tend to drive it out of thermal equilibrium.

DOI
10.1088/1751-8121/ad3e50

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Abstract The issue of thermalization in open quantum systems is explored from the perspective of fermion models with quadratic couplings and linear baths. Both the thermodynamic state and the stationary solution of the Lindblad equation are rendered as a matrix-product sequence following a reformulation in terms of underlying algebras, allowing to characterize a family of stationary solutions and determine the cases where they correspond to thermal states. This characterization provides insight into the operational mechanisms that lead the system to thermalization and their interplay with mechanisms that tend to drive it out of thermal equilibrium.
We investigate the dynamics of a qubit chain locally coupled to a thermal reservoir, modeled through repeated collisions with particles drawn from a heat bath. Under suitable conditions, the resulting Lindblad equation is thermodynamically consistent -- it drives the system toward thermal equilibrium -- while remaining local at short times. This framework reveals a crossover between the global Lindblad equation derived from the secular approximation in weak-coupling theory and the local dissipative models often employed in the literature, which generally fail to ensure thermodynamic consistency.
The Lindblad master equation for an arbitrary quadratic system of n fermions is solved explicitly in terms of diagonalization of a 4 n × 4 n matrix, provided that all Lindblad bath operators are linear in the fermionic variables. The method is applied to the explicit construction of non-equilibrium steady states (NESS) and the calculation of asymptotic relaxation rates in the far from equilibrium problem of heat and spin transport in a nearest neighbour Heisenberg XY spin-1/2 chain in a transverse magnetic field.
An exact stochastic model for the thermalization of quantum states is proposed. The model has various physically appealing properties. The dynamics are characterized by an underlying Schrödinger evolution, together with a nonlinear term driving the system toward an asymptotic equilibrium state and a stochastic term reflecting fluctuations. There are two free parameters, one of which can be identified with the heat bath temperature, while the other determines the characteristic time scale for thermalization. Exact expressions are derived for the evolutionary dynamics of the system energy, the system entropy, and the associated density operator.
We generalize the method of third quantization to a unified exact treatment of Redfield and Lindblad master equations for open quadratic systems of n fermions in terms of diagonalization of a 4 n ×4 n matrix. Non-equilibrium thermal driving in terms of the Redfield equation is analyzed in detail. We explain how one can compute all the physically relevant quantities, such as non-equilibrium expectation values of local observables, various entropies or information measures, or time evolution and properties of relaxation. We also discuss how to exactly treat explicitly time-dependent problems. The general formalism is then applied to study a thermally driven open XY spin 1/2 chain. We find that the recently proposed non-equilibrium quantum phase transition in the open XY chain survives the thermal driving within the Redfield model. In particular, the phase of long-range magnetic correlations can be characterized by hypersensitivity of the non-equilibrium steady state to external (bath or bulk) parameters. Studying the heat transport, we find negative differential thermal conductance for sufficiently strong thermal driving as well as non-monotonic dependence of the heat current on the strength of the bath coupling.
Thermalization of isolated and open quantum systems has been studied extensively. However, being the subject of investigation by different scientific communities and being analysed using different mathematical tools, the connection between the isolated (IQS) and open (OQS) approaches to thermalization has remained opaque. Here we demonstrate that the fundamental difference between the two paradigms is the order in which the long time and the thermodynamic limits are taken. This difference implies that they describe physics on widely different time and length scales. Our analysis is carried out numerically for the case of a double quantum dot (DQD) coupled to a fermionic lead, also known as the interacting resonant level model in quantum impurity physics. We show how both OQS and IQS thermalization can be explored in this model on equal footing, allowing a fair comparison between the two. We find that while the quadratically coupled (free) DQD experiences no isolated thermalization, it of course does experience open thermalization. For the non-linearly interacting DQD coupled to a fermionic lead, the many-body interaction in the DQD breaks the integrability of the whole system. We find that this system shows strong evidence of both OQS and IQS thermalization in the same dynamics, but at widely different time scales, consistent with reversing the order of the long time and the thermodynamic limits.
Quantum thermalization describes how interacting quantum systems relax toward thermal equilibrium, a central problem in modern physics. Yet most experimental information on many-body systems comes from short-time transition spectroscopy, typically interpreted within Kubo's linear-response framework. These perspectives-long-time equilibration versus short-time response-seem fundamentally disconnected. Here we establish an exact link between them: the \emph{Kubo-Thermalization correspondence}, which connects long-time thermalized magnetization under weak driving to short-time linear-response spectra for a spin coupled to a thermal bath. The correspondence holds even when the steady state differs substantially from the initial state and when each regime is individually difficult to describe theoretically. We experimentally confirm the correspondence using effective spin-1/21/21/2 impurities realized with ultracold fermions in two internal states coupled to a Fermi sea. Our results provide a rare exact statement about quantum thermalization and offer a novel route to infer thermalization dynamics from equilibrium response measurements in strongly interacting quantum systems, independent of microscopic details of the system--bath coupling.