Equilibrium and Nonequilibrium Aspects of Phase Transitions in Quantum Physics Foreword

Ricardo Puebla

N. S. Tonchev, J.G. Brankov

We present some aspects of the fidelity approach to phase transitions based on lower and upper bounds on the fidelity susceptibility that are expressed in terms of thermodynamic quantities. Both commutative and non commutative cases are considered. In the commutative case, in addition, a relation between the fidelity and the nonequilibrium work done on the system in a process from an equilibrium initial state to an equilibrium final state has been obtained by using the Jarzynski equality.

Aditya Shashi

Traditionally the study of quantum mechanical ensembles was focused on the exploration of their equilibrium properties: the program has consisted of the classification of the quantum mechanical states of matter, and the identification of the striking phase transitions between them. On the other hand, questions about the out of equilibrium properties of quantum ensembles have largely remained academic until fairly recently. Particularly, the rapid technological progress in the field of atomic physics has enabled experimental demonstrations of nontrivial out of equilibrium phenomena which moreover are describable in terms of relatively simple theoretical models with a few parameters. Thus the time is ripe for a theoretical exploration of nonequilibrium physics. To this end, quantum impurity models offer a natural and simple starting point for studying nonequilibrium phenomena in the context of ultracold atoms, and pave the way toward the study of more complicated systems. I will discuss how the impurity-bath model offers a clean, simple realization of rich phenomenology including the dynamics of polaron formation as well as the orthogonality catastrophe, and can be engineered using dilute mixtures of cold atomic gases. Moreover I will demonstrate how impurity models are also embedded in the more complicated physics of the response of a one-dimensional system to an external perturbation, or a sudden local parameter change. Lastly, I will describe the approach to equilibrium of a more\ncomplicated system, the one dimensional Bose gas, following a sudden parameter change, and discuss some of the important questions which arise in this connection: does a quantum mechanical system thermalize? What is the appropriate asymptotic description of a nonequilibrium state? Does such a system retain a memory of its initial state?

Eduardo Carlo Mascarenhas Moraes

In this thesis we study collective, emergent and optical properties of interacting quantum systems both in equilibrium and nonequilibrium situations from a microscopic modelling. This orientation steams from both the fact there is a profound need to design, characterise and set up control strategies for realistic systems in which quantum technologies could be conceived and the interest to grasp and identify fundamental principles for the emergence of macroscopic behaviour. The thesis is divided into three parts: I Optical and Collective Phenomena; II Equilibrium many-body systems and III Nonequilibrium many-body systems. Part I includes four complementary contributions to the optics emerging from the collective behaviour of microscopic quantum systems. In part II (Equilibrium many-body systems) of the thesis I have addressed the physics of quantum phase transitions from the perspective of nonequilibrium thermodynamics. We have shown that such an approach captures the essential features of finite order transitions that have a strong connection to thermodynamical and energetic figures of merit, but does not capture infinite order transitions that are of a much more subtle nature. Motivated by these exotic infinite order transitions we have looked at quantum phases and phase transitions through an informational and operational perspective based on pure state conversions restricted by local operations. In the third and last part (Nonequilibrium many-body systems) of the thesis I have laid out a project on the closed evolution of quantum spin chains focussing on the emergent nonequilibrium laws that depart from equilibrium physics.