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Physical Review E

Locality, entanglement, and thermalization of isolated quantum systems

Sergei Khlebnikov, Martı́n Kruczenski

Published Nov 3, 2014• 14 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A way to understand thermalization in an isolated system is to interpret it as an increase in entanglement between subsystems. Here we test this idea through a combination of analytical and Krylov-subspace-based numerical methods applied to a quantum gas of bosons. We find that the entanglement entropy of a subsystem is rapidly generated at the initial state of the evolution, to quickly approach the thermal value. Our results also provide an accurate numerical test of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), according to which a single energy eigenstate of an isolated system behaves in certain respects as a thermal state. In the context of quantum black holes, we propose that the ETH is a quantum version of the classical no-hair theorem.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.90.050101

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A way to understand thermalization in an isolated system is to interpret it as an increase in entanglement between subsystems. Here we test this idea through a combination of analytical and Krylov-subspace-based numerical methods applied to a quantum gas of bosons. We find that the entanglement entropy of a subsystem is rapidly generated at the initial state of the evolution, to quickly approach the thermal value. Our results also provide an accurate numerical test of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), according to which a single energy eigenstate of an isolated system behaves in certain respects as a thermal state. In the context of quantum black holes, we propose that the ETH is a quantum version of the classical no-hair theorem.
Understanding the evolution towards thermal equilibrium of an isolated quantum system is at the foundation of statistical mechanics and a subject of interest in such diverse areas as cold atom physics or the quantum mechanics of black holes. Since a pure state can never evolve into a thermal density matrix, the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) has been put forward by Deutsch and Srednicki as a way to explain this apparent thermalization, similarly to what the ergodic theorem does in classical mechanics. In this paper this hypothesis is tested numerically. First, it is observed that thermalization happens in a subspace of states (the Krylov subspace) with dimension much smaller than that of the total Hilbert space. We check numerically the validity of ETH in such a subspace, for a system of hard core bosons on a two-dimensional lattice. We then discuss how well the eigenstates of the Hamiltonian projected on the Krylov subspace represent the true eigenstates. This discussion is aided by bringing the projected Hamiltonian to the tridiagonal form and interpreting it as an Anderson localization problem for a finite one-dimensional chain. We also consider thermalization of a subsystem and argue that generation of a large entanglement entropy can lead to a thermal density matrix for the subsystem well before the whole system thermalizes. Finally, we comment on possible implications of ETH in quantum gravity.
The emergence of statistical mechanics for isolated classical systems comes about through chaotic dynamics and ergodicity. Here we review how similar questions can be answered in quantum systems. The crucial point is that individual energy eigenstates behave in many ways like a statistical ensemble. A more detailed statement of this is named the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH). The reasons for why it works in so many cases are rooted in the early work of Wigner on random matrix theory and our understanding of quantum chaos. The ETH has now been studied extensively by both analytic and numerical means, and applied to a number of physical situations ranging from black hole physics to condensed matter systems. It has recently become the focus of a number of experiments in highly isolated systems. Current theoretical work also focuses on where the ETH breaks down leading to new interesting phenomena. This review of the ETH takes a somewhat intuitive approach as to why it works and how this informs our understanding of many body quantum states.
One of the fundamental problems of quantum statistical physics is how an ideally isolated quantum system can ever reach thermal equilibrium behavior despite the unitary time evolution of quantum-mechanical systems. Here, we study, via explicit time evolution for the generic model system of an interacting, trapped Bose gas with discrete single-particle levels, how the measurement of one or more observables subdivides the system into observed and non-observed Hilbert subspaces and the tracing over the non-measured quantum numbers defines an effective, thermodynamic bath, induces the entanglement of the observed Hilbert subspace with the bath, and leads to a bi-exponential approach of the entanglement entropy and of the measured observables to thermal equilibrium behavior as a function of time. We find this to be more generally fulfilled than in the scenario of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), namely for both local particle occupation numbers and non-local density correlation functions, and independent of the specific initial quantum state of the time evolution.
The Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) explains how isolated quantum many-body systems thermalize by proposing that each energy eigenstate is already thermal. The hypothesis is believed to be essential to the understanding of quantum chaos and implies various important thermodynamic relations. While by now there are many numerical validations of the ETH, only few analytical arguments supporting the ETH have been found (M. Rigol et al., Nature 452, 2008). One of them is based on a semiclassical limit (M. Srednicki, Phys. Rev. E 50, 1994). Another important reasoning was given by Deutsch, who showed how a small interaction, which is modeled by a random matrix, leads to ETH (J.M. Deutsch, Phys. Rev. A 43, 1991). This thesis aims to find justification for the assumptions made by Deutsch from a microscopic point of view. The idea is to analyze whether a generic quantum system can be brought to a form that satisfies Deutsch's ansatz. The method is to use flow equations to define unitary transformations to map the initial Hamiltonian to an effective one, which can be compared to a random matrix. The test system is a one-dimensional hardcore boson model, which is set up using exact diagonalization and numerous symmetries. We analyze the statistical properties of the numerically obtained Hamiltonian matrices and test for normality and compare them to a random transformation. In a second step we verify that the continuous unitary transformations do not destroy the structure of typical few-body observables by studying the scaling of the inverse participation ratio. The obtained results support our hypothesis that it is possible to extend Deutsch's argument to generic microscopic many-body Hamiltonians.
If we prepare an isolated, interacting quantum system in an eigenstate and perturb a local observable at an initial time, its expectation value will relax towards a thermal expectation value, even though the time evolution of the system is deterministic. The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) of Deutsch and Srednicki suggests that this is possible because each eigenstate of the full quantum system acts as a thermal bath to its subsystems, such that the reduced density matrices of the subsystems resemble thermal density matrices. Here, we use the observation that the eigenvalue distribution of interacting quantum systems is a Gaussian under very general circumstances, and Dyson Brownian motion random matrix theory, to derive the ETH and thereby elevate it from hypothesis to theory. Our analysis provides a derivation of statistical mechanics which neither requires the concepts of ergodicity or typicality, nor that of entropy. Thermodynamic equilibrium follows solely from the applicability of quantum mechanics to large systems and the absence of integrability.
In an isolated quantum many-body system undergoing unitary evolution, we study the thermalization of a subsystem, treating the rest of the system as a bath. In this setting, the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) was proposed to explain thermalization. Consider a nearly integrable Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model obtained by adding random all-to-all 4-body interactions as a perturbation to a random free-fermion model. When the subsystem size is larger than the square root of but is still a vanishing fraction of the system size, we prove thermalization if the system is initialized in a random product state, while almost all eigenstates violate the ETH. In this sense, the ETH is not a necessary condition for thermalization.