The creation of matter in the early universe or in relativistic heavy-ion collisions is inevitable connected to nonequilibrium physics. One of the key challenges is the explanation of the corresponding thermalization process following nonequilibrium instabilities. The role of fermionic quantum fields in such scenarios is discussed in the literature by using approximations of field theories which neglect important quantum corrections. This thesis goes beyond such approximations. A quantum field theory where scalar bosons interact with Dirac fermions via a Yukawa coupling is analyzed in the 2PI effective action formalism. The chosen approximation allows for a correct description of the dynamics including nonequilibrium instabilities. In particular, fermion-boson loop corrections allow to study the interaction of fermions with large boson fluctuations. The applied initial conditions generate nonequilibrium instabilities like parametric resonance or spinodal instabilities. The equations of motion for correlation functions are solved numerically and major characteristics of the fermion dynamics are described by analytical solutions. New mechanisms for the production of fermions are found. Simulations in the case of spinodal instability show that unstable boson fluctuations induce exponentially growing fermion modes with approximately the same growth rate. If the unstable regime lasts long enough a thermalization of the infrared part of the fermion occupation number occurs on time scales much shorter than the time scale on which bosonic quantum fields thermalize. Fermions acquire an excess of occupation in the ultraviolet regime compared to a Fermi-Dirac statistic characterized by a power-law with exponent two. The fermion production mechanism via parametric resonance is found to be most efficient after the instability ends. Quantum corrections then provide a very efficient particle creation mechanism which is interpreted as an amplification of decay processes. The ratio of the Yukawa coupling squared to the boson self-coupling is in both mechanism of great importance. The boson dynamics is qualitatively the same for both kinds of instabilities. An initially unstable evolution shows well-known characteristics with an ensuing quasi-stationary regime. The latter exhibits infrared and/or ultraviolet power-law behaviors in the occupation number which prevent a fast thermalization. Furthermore, for not too large Yukawa couplings the impact of fermions on the dynamics of highly occupied bosons is weak. An acceleration of the evolution of the whole system towards thermal equilibrium is not observed.
The creation of matter in the early universe or in relativistic heavy-ion collisions is inevitable connected to nonequilibrium physics. One of the key challenges is the explanation of the corresponding thermalization process following nonequilibrium instabilities. The role of fermionic quantum fields in such scenarios is discussed in the literature by using approximations of field theories which neglect important quantum corrections. This thesis goes beyond such approximations. A quantum field theory where scalar bosons interact with Dirac fermions via a Yukawa coupling is analyzed in the 2PI effective action formalism. The chosen approximation allows for a correct description of the dynamics including nonequilibrium instabilities. In particular, fermion-boson loop corrections allow to study the interaction of fermions with large boson fluctuations. The applied initial conditions generate nonequilibrium instabilities like parametric resonance or spinodal instabilities. The equations of motion for correlation functions are solved numerically and major characteristics of the fermion dynamics are described by analytical solutions. New mechanisms for the production of fermions are found. Simulations in the case of spinodal instability show that unstable boson fluctuations induce exponentially growing fermion modes with approximately the same growth rate. If the unstable regime lasts long enough a thermalization of the infrared part of the fermion occupation number occurs on time scales much shorter than the time scale on which bosonic quantum fields thermalize. Fermions acquire an excess of occupation in the ultraviolet regime compared to a Fermi-Dirac statistic characterized by a power-law with exponent two. The fermion production mechanism via parametric resonance is found to be most efficient after the instability ends. Quantum corrections then provide a very efficient particle creation mechanism which is interpreted as an amplification of decay processes. The ratio of the Yukawa coupling squared to the boson self-coupling is in both mechanism of great importance. The boson dynamics is qualitatively the same for both kinds of instabilities. An initially unstable evolution shows well-known characteristics with an ensuing quasi-stationary regime. The latter exhibits infrared and/or ultraviolet power-law behaviors in the occupation number which prevent a fast thermalization. Furthermore, for not too large Yukawa couplings the impact of fermions on the dynamics of highly occupied bosons is weak. An acceleration of the evolution of the whole system towards thermal equilibrium is not observed.
In this Thesis we discussed several issues related to the dynamics of isolated quantum many-body systems. The brief overview of Chapter 1 highlighted a series of open fundamental theoretical questions which are crucial for the investigation of nonequilibrium phenomena. Among them, we mainly focused on the emergence of thermal behaviors and on the characterization of dynamical phase transitions and of the associated universal dynamics. To this end, we analyzed some paradigmatic models, such as the Fermi-Hubbard model, the quantum Ising chain, and the O(N) model. -Chapter 2: Absence of thermalization in a Fermi liquid. In this Chapter we report two results that question the common expectation of thermalization in a Landau-Fermi liquid after an interaction quench. We first consider the perturbative expansion in the interaction strength of the long-wavelength structure factor S(q) and show that it does not satisfy the hypothesis that steady-state averages correspond to thermal ones. In particular, S(q) has an analytical component ∼ const. + O(q^2) for q → 0, compatible with thermalization, but it retains also a nonanalytic term ∼ |q| characteristic of a Fermi liquid at zero-temperature. In real space, this nonanalyticity turns in a power-law decay of the density-density correlations, in contrast with the exponential decay associated to thermalization. We next analyze the low-density case, where one can obtain results valid at any order in interaction but at leading in the density, and find that in the steady state the momentum distribution jump at the Fermi surface is strictly finite, though smaller than at equilibrium. -Chapter 3: Nonadiabatic stationary behavior in a driven Ising chain. In this Chapter we discuss the emergence of a nonadiabatic behavior in the dynamics of the order parameter in a low-dimensional system subject to a linear ramp of one of its parameters within a gapped phase, which should be the most favorable situation for an adiabatic evolution. We study in details the dynamics of the spontaneous magnetization m_x(t) in a quantum Ising chain after a linear variation in time of the transverse field within the ordered phase. In particular, focusing on the value of the order parameter at the end of the ramp m_x(τ), we show that the smaller the switching rate of the transverse field is the closer m_x(τ) gets to its ground state value. Nonetheless, this apparently small correction to adiabaticity eventually leads to the disruption of the order exponentially fast in the subsequent time evolution, no matter how slowly the ramp is performed. -Chapter 4: Aging and coarsening in isolated quantum systems after a quench. This Chapter analyzes the nonequilibrium dynamics of an isolated quantum system after a sudden quench to the dynamical critical point, where the emergence of scaling and universal exponents is expected, due to the absence of time and length scales. We explore these features for a bosonic interacting scalar field theory with O(N) symmetry in the large-N limit, where the model is exactly solvable and the exponents and scaling forms of the relevant two-time correlation functions can be analytically calculated. Moreover, we provide evidence of the emergence of a dynamical scaling behavior also for quenches below the dynamical critical point, associated with coarsening. We find that the latter case is characterized by the same scaling functions as those describing the critical case, yet with different exponents. -Chapter 5: Dynamical transitions and statistics of excitations. In this Chapter we study the dynamics of the O(N) model (introduced in the previous Chapter) resulting from a different protocol: a linear ramp of one of its parameters. We find that the presence of a dynamical phase transition, as well as its critical properties, are robust against the change of the protocol. We show that a characterization based on the critical dimensions and exponents would suggest that the dynamical phase transition is analogous to the equilibrium thermal one. However, its nonequilibrium nature becomes evident analyzing the statistics of excitations produced in the ramp process. In particular, the critical properties are encoded in the fluctuations in the number of excitations, which display qualitatively different behaviors depending on the ramp being performed above, at, or below the dynamical critical point. These behaviors bear no dependence on the duration of the protocol.
There has been substantial progress in recent years in the quantitative understanding of the nonequilibrium time evolution of quantum fields. Important topical applications, in particular in high energy particle physics and cosmology, involve dynamics of quantum fields far away from the ground state or thermal equilibrium. In these cases, standard approaches based on small deviations from equilibrium, or on a sufficient homogeneity in time underlying kinetic descriptions, are not applicable. A particular challenge is to connect the far-from-equilibrium dynamics at early times with the approach to thermal equilibrium at late times. Understanding the ``link'' between the early- and the late-time behavior of quantum fields is crucial for a wide range of phenomena. For the first time questions such as the explosive particle production at the end of the inflationary universe, including the subsequent process of thermalization, can be addressed in quantum field theory from first principles. The progress in this field is based on efficient functional integral techniques, so-called n-particle irreducible effective actions, for which powerful nonperturbative approximation schemes are available. Here we give an introduction to these techniques and show how they can be applied in practice. Though we focus on particle physics and cosmology applications, we emphasize that these techniques can be equally applied to other nonequilibrium phenomena in complex many body systems.
There has been substantial progress in recent years in the quantitative understanding of the nonequilibrium time evolution of quantum fields. Important topical applications, in particular in high energy particle physics and cosmology, involve dynamics of quantum fields far away from the ground state or thermal equilibrium. In these cases, standard approaches based on small deviations from equilibrium, or on a sufficient homogeneity in time underlying kinetic descriptions, are not applicable. A particular challenge is to connect the far-from-equilibrium dynamics at early times with the approach to thermal equilibrium at late times. Understanding the ``link'' between the early- and the late-time behavior of quantum fields is crucial for a wide range of phenomena. For the first time questions such as the explosive particle production at the end of the inflationary universe, including the subsequent process of thermalization, can be addressed in quantum field theory from first principles. The progress in this field is based on efficient functional integral techniques, so-called n-particle irreducible effective actions, for which powerful nonperturbative approximation schemes are available. Here we give an introduction to these techniques and show how they can be applied in practice. Though we focus on particle physics and cosmology applications, we emphasize that these techniques can be equally applied to other nonequilibrium phenomena in complex many body systems.
Strongly correlated systems far from equilibrium can exhibit scaling solutions with a dynamically generated weak coupling. We show this by investigating isolated systems described by relativistic quantum field theories for initial conditions leading to nonequilibrium instabilities, such as parametric resonance or spinodal decomposition. The nonthermal fixed points prevent fast thermalization if classical-statistical fluctuations dominate over quantum fluctuations. We comment on the possible significance of these results for the heating of the early Universe after inflation and the question of fast thermalization in heavy-ion collision experiments.
We calculate the far-from-equilibrium dynamics and thermalization both for the quantum and the classical O(N)–model. The early and late-time behavior can be described from the 2PI–loop expansion for weak couplings or the nonperturbative 2PI–1/N expansion of the effective action beyond leading order. A comparison with exact simulations in 1+1 dimensions in the classical limit shows that the 2PI–1/N expansion at next-to-leading order gives quantitatively precise results already for moderate values of N. We derive a criterion for the validity of the classical approximation and verify it by comparing far-fromequilibrium quantum and classical dynamics. At late times one observes the expected deviations due to the difference between classical and quantum thermal equilibrium. In recent years we have witnessed an enormous increase of interest in the dynamics of quantum fields out of equilibrium. Strong motivation comes from a wide range of applications including current and upcoming relativistic heavy-ion collision experiments, phase transitions in the early universe or the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensation. Directly simulating quantum fields in real time, such as solving the Schrödinger equation for the wave functional is prohibitively difficult and one has to find suitable approximations. The
The study of the interplay between interaction-induced correlations and nonequilibrium initial conditions in many-body systems has recently attracted a lot of attention. New experimental techniques provide high control over many-body systems and systematic access to their nonequilibrium regime. In many systems the nonequilibrium properties of a Fermi liquid can be relevant. A first approach to their understanding is the main content of this thesis. At the beginning, nonequilibrium phenomena, Landau's theory of a Fermi liquid, the Hubbard model, time evolution in quantum mechanics, related experiments, and the flow equation method are reviewed. The key observation of this thesis, namely a characteristic mismatch of expectation values in equilibrium and nonequilibrium, is first illustrated for the squeezed oscillator. For this one-particle model Hamiltonian the perturbative approach can be compared with the exact solution and it is shown that the mismatch holds even beyond perturbation theory. Afterwards these observations are generalized to a larger class of one-particle models. Then the nonequilibrium behavior of a Fermi liquid is examined by analyzing the Fermi liquid phase of the Hubbard model in more than one dimension. After a sudden switch-on of a weak two-particle interaction to the noninteracting Fermi gas the relaxation of the many-body system is observed. For this purpose, the flow equation transformation is implemented for the Hubbard Hamiltonian. Then the discussion of the momentum distribution function and of the kinetic energy displays a three-step relaxation behavior of the Fermi liquid from the initial perturbation until thermalization is reached. Firstly, the sudden switch inserts excitation energy into the system which drives the following dynamics. Then a rapid initial build-up of correlations is caused by initial dephasing and leads to the establishment of a quasiparticle picture. By that the system enters into a quasi-stationary state which can be long-lasting for weak interaction. This state shows prethermalization of the kinetic energy which already has relaxed to its final values. However, the momentum distribution still resembles a zero temperature Fermi liquid. Its later relaxation on a second time scale is caused by a residual two-particle interaction which allows for scattering processes and can be described by a quantum Boltzmann equation. The physical origin of this delayed relaxation can be traced back to an interplay of translational invariance of the Hubbard model and the Pauli principle for fermions; together they restrict the phase space for scattering events. Comparing with similar work I conjecture on the generic nature of the findings made for the quenched Fermi liquid in other many-body systems. Finally I point out to the potential relevance of the delayed relaxation for the observation of further nonequilibrium phenomena, for instance in BCS systems. In order to extend the study of sudden switching to arbitrary switching processes the calculation is repeated using the Keldysh perturbation theory. First evaluations for a linear increase of the interaction strength are given. Extensions of this work are suggested and may motivate further research.