The dynamics of the transverse magnetization in the zero-temperature XX chain is studied with emphasis on fronts emerging from steplike initial magnetization profiles. The fronts move with fixed velocity and display a staircase like internal structure whose dynamic scaling is explored both analytically and numerically. The front region is found to spread with time subdiffusively with the height and the width of the staircase steps scaling as t(-1/3) and t(1/3), respectively. The areas under the steps are independent of time; thus the magnetization relaxes in quantized "steps" of spin flips.
The dynamics of the transverse magnetization in the zero-temperature XX chain is studied with emphasis on fronts emerging from steplike initial magnetization profiles. The fronts move with fixed velocity and display a staircase like internal structure whose dynamic scaling is explored both analytically and numerically. The front region is found to spread with time subdiffusively with the height and the width of the staircase steps scaling as t(-1/3) and t(1/3), respectively. The areas under the steps are independent of time; thus the magnetization relaxes in quantized "steps" of spin flips.
We study the relaxation behaviour of the quantum Ising chain, focusing our attention onto the non-equilibrium dynamics of the transverse magnetization. The initial states, from which the magnetization relaxes, are product states such as those generated by setting in contact several systems, each initially equilibrated at a given temperature. Due to the free fermionic structure of the chain, the dynamics of the transverse magnetization is easily expressed in a compact form. In the completely factorized initial state, corresponding to a situation where all the spins are thermalized independently, we obtain in the scaling limit the Green function associated to the transverse magnetization. The relaxation behaviour is also considered in the system-bath case, where part of the chain called the system is thermalized at a temperature Ts and the remaining part is at a temperature Tb. The magnetization profiles show a scaling behaviour. Moreover, in the extreme case Tb=∞ and Ts=0, it is shown that the magnetization relaxes in quantized steps in the strong transverse field region.
We study the connection between magnetization transport and magnetization profiles in zero-temperature XX chains. The time evolution of the transverse magnetization m(x,t) is calculated using an inhomogeneous initial state that is the ground state at fixed magnetization but with m reversed from -m(0) for x<0 to m(0) for x>0. In the long-time limit, the magnetization evolves into a scaling form m(x,t)=Phi(x/t) and the profile develops a flat part (m=Phi=0) in the (x/t)<or=c(m(0)) region. The flat region shrinks to zero if m(0)-->1/2 while it expands with the maximum velocity c(0)=1 for m(0)-->0. The states emerging in the scaling limit are compared to those of a homogeneous system where the same magnetization current is driven by a bulk field, and we find that the expectation values of various quantities (energy, occupation number in the fermionic representation) agree in the two systems.
We present the results obtained on the magnetization relaxation properties of an XX quantum chain in a transverse magnetic field. We first consider an initial thermal kink-like state where half of the chain is initially thermalized at a very high temperature T b while the remaining half, called the system, is put at a lower temperature T s . From this initial state, we derive analytically the Green function associated with the dynamical behaviour of the transverse magnetization. Depending on the strength of the magnetic field and on the temperature of the system, different regimes are obtained for the magnetic relaxation. In particular, with an initial droplet-like state, that is a cold subsystem of the finite size in contact at both ends with an infinite temperature environment, we derive analytically the behaviour of the time-dependent system magnetization.
We investigate the non-equilibrium dynamics of the transverse field quantum Ising chain evolving from an inhomogeneous initial state given by joining two macroscopically different semi-infinite chains. We obtain integral expressions for all two-point correlation functions of the Jordan--Wigner Majorana fermions at any time and for any value of the transverse field. Using this result, we analytically compute the profiles of various physical observables in the space-time scaling limit and show that they can be obtained from a hydrodynamic picture based on ballistically propagating quasiparticles. Going beyond the hydrodynamic limit, we analyze the approach to the non-equilibrium steady state and find that the leading late time corrections display a lattice effect. We also study the fine structure of the propagating fronts which are found to be described by the Airy kernel and its derivatives. Near the front we observe the phenomenon of energy back-flow where the energy locally flows from the colder to the hotter region.
We investigate the real-time dynamics of a critical spin-1/2 chain (XXZ model) prepared in an inhomogeneous initial state with different magnetizations on the left and right halves. Using the time-evolving block decimation method, we follow the front propagation by measuring the magnetization and entanglement entropy profiles. At long times, as in the free fermion case [Antal et al., Phys. Rev. E 59, 4912 (1999)], a large central region develops where correlations become time independent and translation invariant. The shape and speed of the fronts is studied numerically and we evaluate the stationary current as a function of initial magnetic field and as a function of the anisotropy $\ensuremath{\Delta}$. We compare the results with the conductance of a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid, and with the exact free-fermion solution at $\ensuremath{\Delta}=0$. We also investigate the two-point correlations in the stationary region and find a good agreement with the ``twisted'' form obtained by Lancaster and Mitra [Phys. Rev. E 81, 061134 (2010)] using bosonization. Some deviations are nevertheless observed for strong currents.
We consider a multiparticle fermionic state to study the magnetization dynamics in an XX spin chain model. The advantage this state provides is the freedom in choosing the initial magnetization profile at each spin site. We characterize the t=0 properties of this state, in particular, the probability for the state to have n fermions, fidelity, the two-point and the four-point correlators, and spin-spin correlations. The dynamics of the domain-wall state formed by considering the ground states with magnetizations m0 and $\ensuremath{-}{m}_{0}$ in the left and right half of the chain, respectively, results in the growth of a flat plateau (m=0) away from the origin. In contrast, the magnetization dynamics of the domain wall state initialized via the multiparticle state reveals the absence of such a region. Our studies of the particle-number fluctuation for the multiparticle state with all sites having identical magnetization reveals linear dependence with respect to the system size, as opposed to the lnl dependence which is obtained for the ground state with the same magnetization.