Quantum Quenches in an XXZ Spin Chain with an Inhomogeneous Initial State

Hans Gerd Evertz, Martin Ganahl, Elias Rabel +1 more

Jarrett L. Lancaster, Aditi Mitra

Results are presented for the nonequilibrium dynamics of a quantum XXZ -spin chain whose spins are initially arranged in a domain wall profile via the application of a magnetic field in the z direction, which is spatially varying along the chain. The system is driven out of equilibrium in two ways: a). by rapidly turning off the magnetic field, b). by rapidly quenching the interactions at the same time as the magnetic field is turned off. The time evolution of the domain wall profile as well as various two-point spin correlation functions are studied by the exact solution of the fermionic problem for the XX chain and via a bosonization approach and a mean-field approach for the XXZ chain. At long times the magnetization is found to equilibrate (reach the ground state value), while the two-point correlation functions in general do not. In particular, for quenches within the gapless XX phase, the spin correlation function transverse to the z direction acquires a spatially inhomogeneous structure at long times whose details depend on the initial domain wall profile. The spatial inhomogeneity is also recovered for the case of classical spins initially arranged in a domain wall profile and shows that the inhomogeneities arise due to the dephasing of transverse spin components as the domain wall broadens. A generalized Gibbs ensemble approach is found to be inadequate in capturing this spatially inhomogeneous state.

Onofre Rojas, S. M. de Souza, E. V. Corrêa Silva +1 more

Onofre Rojas, S. M. de Souza, E. V. Corrêa Silva +1 more

Maurizio Fagotti, Mario Collura, Fabian H. L. Eßler +1 more

We consider the time evolution after quantum quenches in the spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ Heisenberg XXZ quantum spin chain with Ising-type anisotropy. The time evolution of short-distance spin-spin correlation functions is studied by numerical tensor network techniques for a variety of initial states, including N\'eel and Majumdar-Ghosh states and the ground state of the XXZ chain at large values of the anisotropy. The various correlators appear to approach stationary values, which are found to be in good agreement with the results of exact calculations of stationary expectation values in appropriate generalized Gibbs ensembles. In particular, our analysis shows how symmetries of the post-quench Hamiltonian that are broken by particular initial states are restored at late times.

Pozsgai, Balázs

We consider a class of quantum quenches in the spin-1/2 XXZ chain, where the initial state is of a simple product form. Specific examples are the Néel state, the dimer state and the q-deformed dimer state. We compute determinant formulas for finite volume overlaps between the initial state and arbitrary eigenstates of the spin chain Hamiltonian. These results could serve as a basis for calculating the time dependence of correlation functions following the quantum quench.