The study of the quantum dynamics of ultra-cold atomic gases has become a forefront of atomic research. Experiments studying dynamics have become routine in laboratories, and a plethora of phenomena have been studied. Theoretically, however, the situation is often intractable unless one resorts to numerical or semiclassical calculations. In this thesis we apply the symmetry associated with scale invariance to study the dynamics of atomic gases, and discuss the implications of this symmetry on the full quantum dynamics. In particular we study the time evolution of an expanding two-dimensional Bose gas with attractive contact interactions, and the three-dimensional Fermi gas at unitarity. To do this we employ a quantum variational approach and exact symmetry arguments. It is shown that the time evolution due to a scale invariant Hamiltonian produces an emergent conformal symmetry. This emergent conformal symmetry has implications on the time evolution of an expanding quantum gas. In addition, we examine the effects of broken scale symmetry on the expansion dynamics. To do this, we develop a non-perturbative formalism that classifies the possible dynamics that can occur. This formalism is then applied to two systems, an ensemble of two-body systems, and for the compressional and elliptic flow of a unitary Fermi gas, both in three spatial dimensions.
The study of the quantum dynamics of ultra-cold atomic gases has become a forefront of atomic research. Experiments studying dynamics have become routine in laboratories, and a plethora of phenomena have been studied. Theoretically, however, the situation is often intractable unless one resorts to numerical or semiclassical calculations. In this thesis we apply the symmetry associated with scale invariance to study the dynamics of atomic gases, and discuss the implications of this symmetry on the full quantum dynamics. In particular we study the time evolution of an expanding two-dimensional Bose gas with attractive contact interactions, and the three-dimensional Fermi gas at unitarity. To do this we employ a quantum variational approach and exact symmetry arguments. It is shown that the time evolution due to a scale invariant Hamiltonian produces an emergent conformal symmetry. This emergent conformal symmetry has implications on the time evolution of an expanding quantum gas. In addition, we examine the effects of broken scale symmetry on the expansion dynamics. To do this, we develop a non-perturbative formalism that classifies the possible dynamics that can occur. This formalism is then applied to two systems, an ensemble of two-body systems, and for the compressional and elliptic flow of a unitary Fermi gas, both in three spatial dimensions.
The evolution of non-equilibrium dynamic for many-body systems is one of the most challenging problems in physics. Ultra-cold quantum atomic Fermi gas provide an test-bed for studying many-body non-equilibrium dynamics due to its high freedom of controllability, which can be used to simulate and understand the dynamics of the early universe after the Big Bang, quark-gluon produced in heavy ion collisions and nuclear physics. Generally, the evolution of many-body systems is very complex, and usually needs to be studied by symmetry. Feshbach resonance can be used to prepare scale invariant atomic Fermi gases: non-interacting and unitary Fermi gases. When far away from equilibrium state, universal exponents and functions can be used to characterize the dynamics of the system, which can be identified by scaling the temporal and spatial evolution of the system. In this review, the recent developments in the expansion dynamics of strongly interacting ultracold Fermi gases are introduced, including the anisotropic expansion of atomic gases, scaling dynamics and Efimovian expansion dynamics.
Recently universal dynamic scaling is observed in several systems, which exhibit a spatiotemporal self-similar scaling behavior, analogous to the spatial scaling near phase transition. The latter one arises from the emergent continuous scaling symmetry. Motivated by this, we investigate the possible relation between the scaling dynamics and the continuous scaling symmetry in this paper. We derive a theorem that the scaling invariance of the quenched Hamiltonian and the initial density matrix can lead to the universal dynamic scaling. It is further demonstrated both in a two-body system analytically and in a many-body system numerically. For the latter one, we calculate the dynamics of quantum gases quenched from the zero interaction to a finite interaction via the non-equilibrium high-temperature virial expansion. A dynamic scaling of the momentum distribution appears in certain momentum-time windows at unitarity as well as in the weak interacting limit. Remarkably, this universal scaling dynamics persists approximately with smaller scaling exponents even if the scaling symmetry is fairly broken. Our findings may offer a new perspective to interpret the related experiments. We also study the Contact dynamics in the BEC–BCS crossover. Surprisingly, the half-way time displays a maximum near unitarity while some damping oscillations occur on the BEC side due to the dimer state, which can be used to detect possible two-body bound states in experiments.
In this thesis, far-from-equilibrium dynamics of fermionic quantum gases is discussed utilising functional quantum field theoretical methods. Employing the Schwinger-Keldysh path integral, real-time Schwinger-Dyson/Kadanoff-Baym dynamic equations for the two-point correlation functions are derived from the two-particle irreducible (2PI) effective action. For two specific models, these dynamic equations are investigated further. (a) For an N-fold spin-degenerate ultra-cold Fermi gas, non-perturbative approximation schemes based on either a loop or a 1/N expansion of the 2PI effective action are presented. Adopting these approximations, the long-time evolution of a homogeneous Fermi gas with N=2 after an initial preparation far from thermal equilibrium is thoroughly studied in one spatial dimension. Depending on the total energy, the gas is found to evolve into thermal as well as non-thermal states, the latter becoming manifest in violating the fluctuation-dissipation relation. (b) A similar 1/N expansion is derived for the SU(N) symmetric Kondo lattice model. At leading order, the mean-field dynamic equations of the U=0 Anderson model are recovered. At next-to-leading order (NLO), both spin-flip and direct interactions between localised atoms and conduction band atoms are taken into account non-perturbatively into the dynamic equations. This allows future studies of possibly existing novel phases in coupling regimes where the Kondo screening and RKKY-type interactions are competing.
Scale invariance is conventionally discussed in the context of critical phenomena near a continuous phase transition. In atomic gases, a new class of scale invariant systems emerges, which we call “intrinsic scale invariance.” In these systems, the scaling symmetry does not rely on a phase transition, but comes from the balance of kinetic and interaction energy at different length scales. Three examples are discussed here: three-dimensional unitary Fermi gas, two-dimensional dilute Bose gas, and unitary Bose gas. The first two are invariant under continuous scaling transformation, and thus they share the same universal thermodynamics. Unitary Bose gas is a special case with expected discrete scaling symmetry because of Efimov three-body physics.We show that the discrete scale invariance can be captured by a complex scaling dimension and suggest a universal form for the observables. Introduction The achievement of atomic Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in 1995 initiated a new adventure to explore quantum many-body phenomena in the gas phase, a journey that has yielded much excitement and is still progressing fast. Because of their diluteness, ultracold atomic gases can be precisely modeled and characterized with high accuracy. In addition, new opportunities have emerged in the past decade to prepare cold atoms in the strong coupling regime. By loading the samples into optical lattices [1] or tuning them near a Feshbach resonance [2], for instance, cold atoms offer a unique platform to investigate strongly correlated quantum phenomena. Examples include the superfluid-Mott insulator transition [3] (see also Chapter 13), BEC-BCS (Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer) crossover [4, 5, 6, 7] (see also related overview in Chapter 12), Efimov trimer states [8], and Berezinskii- Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in two dimensions [9] (see also Chapter 10). One key motivation in these explorations is to uncover new, universal laws that underpin the behavior of strong-coupled few- and many-body quantum systems. In this chapter, we discuss “scale invariance” as a generic attribute in various cold atom systems, including all of the aforementioned examples. While scale invariance is conventionally discussed in the context of critical phenomena, the cold atom systems that interest us belong to a new class, which we call “intrinsic scale invariance.” In the following, we first overview the main features of different types of scale invariance and discuss related examples in cold atom systems.
The study of out-of-equilibrium dynamics in ultra-cold gases is a new and exciting field, driven largely by the recent experimental advances in controlling and imaging cold clouds. The experimental and theoretical work thus far has been somewhat exploratory and largely numerical in nature, as the very paradigms for thinking about these systems are not well established. In this thesis I consider several different scenarios of ultra-cold bosonic and fermionic gases driven out of equilibrium and study their properties. In Chapter 1, I provide an overview of the phenomenology of ultra-cold gases, highlighting the timescales governing these systems and how the experimentalist can tune them. I discuss how cold gases can be cooled and trapped and discuss the basic physics behind optical lattices. I also discuss experimental probes of these gases, in particular the new high resolution imaging techniques developed recently at Chicago, Munich and Harvard. In Chapter 2, I discuss an early experiment (circa. 2008) which observed long lived spin dynamics in a thermal spin-1/2 Fermi gas. This experiment is an nice illustration of interesting physics resulting from the separation of timescales between spin and collisional dynamics. In my opinion, it is an excellent example of why cold gases are naturally suited to studying non-equilibrium dynamics. I simulate the experiment numerically using a collisionless Boltzmann equation and explain the observed spin dynamics both qualitatively and quantitively. In Chapter 3, I continue the discussion of spin waves in thermal gases by extending previous works on spin-1/2 gases to spin-1 Bose gases. In contrast to Chapter 2, the bulk of the work in this Chapter is analytic in nature. In particular, I find a spin wave instability in the thermal spin-1 Bose gas, which is the high temperature analog of the polar to ferromagnetic transition in a spin-1 Bose Einstein condensate. In Chapter 3, I turn my attention to bosonic systems and briefly review the the Bogoliubov mean-field theory. I calculate the momentum distribution and density-density correlation function of an interacting Bose gas within the Bogoliubov framework. Then I consider bosons in an optical lattice, and introduce the Bose Hubbard model. I calculate the mean-field phase diagram of the Bose Hubbard model and then consider fluctuations about the mean field, and derive the excitation spectrum of the lattice gas in the superfluid and insulating regimes. In Chapter 4, I ask what we learn by studying the dynamics of correlation functions following a sudden change in the interactions in a superfluid. Using the Bogoliubov theory developed in Chapter 3, I will show how the underlying excitation spectrum influences the long and short time behavior of the correlation functions. By considering a lattice dispersion, I study the analogous problem in a weak optical lattice and discuss how the lattice dispersion leads to additional features in the correlation functions. I will also discuss the timescale governing the revival of the condensate fraction in a quantum depleted gas. In Chapter 5, I derive equations of motion governing the dynamics of one and two body correlation functions in the single-band Bose Hubbard model, applicable to bosons in deep lattices. I then consider a simple quench from a Mott insulating initial state to a weakly interacting final state and produce analytic expressions describing the dynamics of correlations following such a quench. I discuss the timescale for the development of long range order following such a quench. I study the problem of chapter 4 using an equations of motion approach. This approach complements the Bogoliubov approach of Chapter 4. First, I derive exact expressions for a quench to a non-interacting state. I then consider how interactions redistribute quasi-momentum to first order in perturbation theory in different dimensions. In Chapter 6, I calculate the relevant timescales for local and global dynamics in trapped lattice Bose gases, a work done in collaboration with Dr. Kaden R. A Hazzard. Using a time-dependent Gutzwiller mean-field theory, I show that the timescale for local equilibration in these systems is fast in experimental terms. I then show that due to the spatial inhomogeneities inherent to cold gases, achieving global equilibrium can be quite complicated, sometimes taking longer than the lifetime of the experiment, an issue of practical importance to current day experiments. I continue this discussion in Chapter 7 which is a collaborative work with experimentalists David McKay and Prof. Brian DeMarco from the University of Toronto and the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. Using experimental and numerical methods, we show that the rapid timescales for local dynamics in interacting systems invalidates a frequently used cold atom technique for mapping out the momentum distribution of atoms in an optical lattice.
In this article we study the quench dynamics of Galilean and scale-invariant many-body systems which can be prepared using interacting atomic gases. The far-from-equilibrium dynamics is investigated by employing m-body density matrices, which are most conveniently defined in terms of a special basis, the conformal tower states. We explicitly illustrate that, although during the initial stage of the dynamics all symmetries can be broken and absent in the unitary evolution because of the initialization of the state, there is always an emergent conformal symmetry in the long-time limit. The emergence of this dynamic conformal symmetry is robust and always occurs, even when scale and other symmetries (such as rotational symmetry) are still fully broken in the many-body states; it uniquely defines the characteristics of the asymptotic dynamics near a scale-invariant strong-coupling fixed point. As an immediate application of the asymptotic dynamics of the microscopic density matrices, we focus on the effects of this emergent conformal symmetry on two observables: the moment of inertia tensor Iij(t),i,j=x,y,z, and the entropy density field S(r,t) in the hydrodynamic flow of strongly interacting particles. We show that the long-time behavior of these observables is completely set by conformal symmetry, while the leading long-time corrections depend on interference effects between different conformal tower states. The emergent conformal symmetry naturally leads to entropy conservation and conformal cooling, an energy-conserving cooling of a strongly interacting gas during free expansion. When the interaction Hamiltonian breaks the scale symmetry, we further demonstrate that there is a direct cause-effect relation between conformal symmetry breaking in the long-time limit and a nonvanishing entropy production. This suggests that the entropy production rate is a natural parameter for categorizing the breaking of conformal symmetry.