Locality, entanglement, and thermalization of isolated quantum systems.

Abstract

A way to understand thermalization in an isolated system is to interpret it as an increase in entanglement between subsystems. Here we test this idea through a combination of analytical and Krylov-subspace-based numerical methods applied to a quantum gas of bosons. We find that the entanglement entropy of a subsystem is rapidly generated at the initial state of the evolution, to quickly approach the thermal value. Our results also provide an accurate numerical test of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), according to which a single energy eigenstate of an isolated system behaves in certain respects as a thermal state. In the context of quantum black holes, we propose that the ETH is a quantum version of the classical no-hair theorem.