The sine-Gordon model appears as the low-energy effective field theory of various one-dimensional gapped quantum systems. Here we investigate the dynamics of generic, nonintegrable systems belonging to the sine-Gordon family at finite temperature within the semiclassical approach. Focusing on timescales where the effect of nontrivial quasiparticle scatterings becomes relevant, we obtain universal results for the long-time behavior of dynamical correlation functions. We find that correlation functions of vertex operators behave neither ballistically nor diffusively but follow a stretched exponential decay in time. We also study the full counting statistics of the topological current and find that distribution of the transferred charge is non-Gaussian with its cumulants scaling nonuniformly in time.
We compute the time evolution of correlation functions after quantum quenches in the sine-Gordon model within the semiclassical approximation, which is expected to yield accurate results for small and slow quenches producing slow quasiparticles with low density. We demonstrate this by reproducing results of a recent form-factor calculation of the relaxation of expectation values [B. Bertini, D. Schuricht, and F. H. L. Essler, J. Stat. Mech. (2014) P100351742-546810.1088/1742-5468/2014/10/P10035]. Extending these results, we find that-in the universal limit of vanishingly small quasiparticle velocities-the expectation values of most vertex operators do not decay to zero. We give analytic expressions for the relaxation of dynamic correlation functions and show that they have diffusive behavior for large timelike separation.
With regard to the thermalization problem in isolated quantum systems, we investigate the dynamics following a quantum quench of the sine-Gordon model (sGM) in the Luther–Emery and the semiclassical limits. We consider the quench from the gapped to the gapless phase, as well as the reverse one. By obtaining analytic expressions for the one- and two-point correlation functions of the order parameter operator at zero-temperature, the manifestations of integrability in the absence of thermalization in the sGM are studied. It is shown that correlations in the long-time regime after the quench are well described by a generalized Gibbs ensemble. We also consider the case where the system is initially in contact with a reservoir at finite temperature. The possible relevance of our results to current and future experiments with ultracold atomic systems is also considered.
We study the nonequilibrium dynamics of the quantum sine-Gordon model describing a pair of Josephson-coupled one-dimensional bosonic quasicondensates. Motivated by experimentally accessible quench procedures where the zero mode of the quasicondensates is weakly coupled to finite momentum modes, we develop a Hamiltonian truncation scheme relying on a mini-superspace treatment of the zero mode (MSTHA). We apply this method to simulate the time evolution after both weak and strong quantum quenches, injecting a low or high energy density into the system, and we demonstrate that MSTHA accurately captures the dynamics from the hard-core boson limit to the experimentally relevant weakly interacting regime for sufficiently mild quenches. In the case of high energy densities, MSTHA breaks down for weak interaction but still extends the range of validity of previous Hamiltonian truncation schemes. We also compare these results to the semiclassical truncated Wigner approximation, and we establish that the dynamics can be well approximated by the semiclassical description in the weakly interacting regime realized in the experiments. In addition, we clarify the importance of the phononic modes depending on the sine-Gordon interaction strength.
We discuss the theory of the nonzero temperature
(T) spin dynamics and transport in one-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnets with a gap $\ensuremath{\Delta}$. For $T\ensuremath{\ll}\ensuremath{\Delta}$, we develop a semiclassical picture of thermally excited particles. Multiple inelastic collisions between the particles are crucial, and are described by a two-particle
S matrix which is shown to have a superuniversal form at low momenta. This is established by computations on the
O(3) $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ model, and strong- and weak-coupling expansions (the latter using a Majorana fermion representation) for the two-leg
S=1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic ladder. As an aside, we note that the strong-coupling calculation reveals an
S=1, two-particle bound state which leads to the presence of a second peak in the
T=0 inelastic neutron-scattering (INS) cross section for a range of values of momentum transfer. We obtain exact, or numerically exact, universal expressions for the thermal broadening of the quasiparticle peak in the INS cross section, the spin diffusivity, and for the field dependence of the NMR relaxation rate
1/T1 of the effective semiclassical model; these are expected to be asymptotically exact for the quantum antiferromagnets in the limit $T\ensuremath{\ll}\ensuremath{\Delta}$. The results for
1/T1 are compared with the experimental findings of Takigawa et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 2173 (1996)] and the agreement is quite good. In the regime $\ensuremath{\Delta}<T<$(a typical microscopic exchange) and we argue that a complementary description in terms of semiclassical waves applies, and give some exact results for the thermodynamics and dynamics.