Generalized Gibbs Ensemble Research Articles

Prethermalization and thermalization in entanglement dynamics

We investigate the crossover of the entanglement entropy towards its thermal value in nearly integrable systems. We employ equation of motion techniques to study the entanglement dynamics in a lattice model of weakly interacting spinless fermions after a quantum quench. For weak enough interactions we observe a two-step relaxation of the entanglement entropies of finite subsystems. Initially the entropies follow a nearly integrable evolution, approaching the value predicted by the Generalized Gibbs Ensemble (GGE) of the unperturbed model. Then, they start a slow drift towards the thermal stationary value described by a standard Gibbs Ensemble (GE). While the initial relaxation to the GGE is independent of the interaction, the slow drift from GGE to GE values happens on time scales proportional to the inverse interaction squared. For asymptotically large times and subsystem sizes the dynamics of the entropies can be predicted using a modified quasiparticle picture that keeps track of the evolution of the fermionic occupations caused by the integrability breaking. This picture gives a quantitative description of the results as long as the integrability-breaking timescale is much larger than the one associated with the (quasi) saturation to the GGE. In the opposite limit the quasiparticle picture still provides the correct late-time behaviour, but it underestimates the initial slope of the entanglement entropy.

Generalized hydrodynamics in box-ball system

Box-ball system (BBS) is a prominent example of integrable cellular automata in one dimension connected to quantum groups, Bethe ansatz, ultradiscretization, tropical geometry and so forth. In this paper we study the generalized Gibbs ensemble of BBS soliton gas by thermodynamic Bethe ansatz and generalized hydrodynamics. The results include the solution to the speed equation for solitons, an intriguing connection of the effective speed with the period matrix of the tropical Riemann theta function, an explicit description of the density plateaux that emerge from domain wall initial conditions including their diffusive corrections.

Constrained thermalization and topological superconductivity

We examine the thermalisation/localization trade off in an interacting and disordered Kitaev model, specifically addressing whether signatures of many-body localization can coexist with the systems topological phase. Using methods applicable to finite size systems, (e.g. the generalized one-particle density matrix, eigenstate entanglement entropy, inverse zero modes coherence length) we identify a regime of parameter space in the vicinity of the non-interacting limit where topological superconductivity survives together with a significant violation of Eigenstate-Thermalisation-Hypothesis (ETH) at finite energy-densities. We further identify an anomalous behaviour of the von Neumann entanglement entropy which can be attributed to the prethermalisation-like effects that occur due to lack of hybridization between high-energy eigenstates reflecting an approximate particle conservation law. In this regime the system tends to thermalise to a generalised Gibbs ensemble (as opposed to the grand canonical ensemble). Moderate disorder tends to drive the system towards stronger hybridization and a standard thermal ensemble, where the approximate conservation law is violated. This behaviour is cutoff by strong disorder which obstructs many body effects thus violating ETH and reducing the entanglement entropy.

Exact out-of-equilibrium steady states in the semiclassical limit of the interacting Bose gas

We study the out-of-equilibrium properties of a classical integrable non-relativistic theory, with a time evolution initially prepared with a finite energy density in the thermodynamic limit. The theory considered here is the Non-Linear Schrödinger equation which describes the dynamics of the one-dimensional interacting Bose gas in the regime of high occupation numbers. The main emphasis is on the determination of the late-time Generalised Gibbs Ensemble (GGE), which can be efficiently semi-numerically computed on arbitrary initial states, completely solving the famous quench problem in the classical regime. We take advantage of known results in the quantum model and the semiclassical limit to achieve new exact results for the momenta of the density operator on arbitrary GGEs, which we successfully compare with ab-initio numerical simulations. Furthermore, we determine the whole probability distribution of the density operator (full counting statistics), whose exact expression is still out of reach in the quantum model.

Collision rate ansatz for the classical Toda lattice.

We consider a generalized Gibbs ensemble of the classical Toda lattice. We establish that the collision rate ansatz follows because (i) the charge-current susceptibility matrix is symmetric and (ii) the stretch current is proportional to the momentum, hence conserved. The method applies also to other integrable many-body systems, either classical or quantum, provided there is a self-conserved current.

Ballistic space-time correlators of the classical toda lattice

The Toda lattice is an integrable system and its natural space-time stationary states are the generalized Gibbs ensembles (GGE). Of particular physical interest are then the space-time correlations of the conserved fields. To leading order they scale ballistically. We report on the exact solution of the respective generalized hydrodynamic equations linearized around a GGE as background state. Thereby we obtain a concise formula for the family of scaling functions.

Flow Equations for Generalized TT[over ¯] Deformations.

We consider the most general set of integrable deformations extending the TT[over ¯] deformation of two-dimensional relativistic QFTs. They are CDD deformations of the theory's factorized S matrix related to the higher-spin conserved charges. Using a mirror version of the generalized Gibbs ensemble, we write down the finite-volume expectation value of the higher-spin charges, and derive a generalized flow equation that every charge must obey under a generalized TT[over ¯] deformation. This also reproduces the known flow equations on the nose.

KdV-charged black holes

We construct black hole geometries in AdS3 with non-trivial values of KdV charges. The black holes are holographically dual to quantum KdV Generalized Gibbs Ensemble in 2d CFT. They satisfy thermodynamic identity and thus are saddle point configurations of the Euclidean gravity path integral. We discuss holographic calculation of the KdV generalized partition function and show that for a certain value of chemical potentials new geometries, not the conventional BTZ ones, are the leading saddles.

Korteweg–de Vries characters in large central charge CFTs

Two-dimensional conformal field theories with just Virasoro symmetry are endowed with integrable structure. We review how to construct the integrable charges in a two-dimensional conformal field theory and how to relate them to the charges of quantum Sinh-Gordon theory when c>25. We then explicitly calculate the single charge characters in the large c limit for all charges and thereby reveal how their degeneracies grow within one module. This, in particular, allows us to approximate the characters in the limit of small chemical potential, which source the respective charges. The latter give us insights into possible transformation properties of the characters. We also comment on the full generalized Gibbs ensemble and approximations to pure states.

Dissipation-Induced Luttinger Liquid Correlations in a One-Dimensional Fermi Gas.

We study a one-dimensional Fermi gas in the presence of dissipative coupling to environment through the Lindblad equation. The dissipation involves energy exchange with the environment and favours the relaxation of electrons to excitations. After switching on the dissipation, the system approaches a steady state, which is described by a generalized Gibbs ensemble. The fermionic single particle density matrix resembles deceivingly to that in a hermitian interaction quench. It decays inversely with the distance for short times due to the fermionic correlations in the initial state, which changes into a noninteger power law decay for late times, representing dissipation-induced Luttinger liquid behavior. However, the crossover between the two regions occurs due to dissipation-induced damping, and is unrelated to the propagation of excitations. The velocity of information spreading is set by the dissipative coupling, and differs significantly from the original sound velocity. The thermodynamic entropy grows as -t ln t initially, and saturates to an extensive value. Our results can be tested experimentally in one-dimensional Dirac systems.

Nonequilibrium physics in integrable systems and spin-flip non-invariant conserved quantities

Recently found spin-flip non-invariant (SFNI) conserved quantities play important roles in discussing nonequilibrium physics of the XXZ model. The representative examples are the generalized Gibbs ensemble (GGE) and the ballistic transport of the spin current. In spite of big progress in understanding nonequilibrium physics of integrable systems, the general framework to determine a minimal complete set of conserved quantities which describes the long-time steady state has not yet been found. This paper shows that the GGE of the gapless XXZ model consists of functionally independent conserved quantities rather than linearly independent. At the same time, the physical meaning of SFNI conserved quantities is provided. We also discuss that there exist ballistic channels of the spin current supported by non-quasilocal conserved quantities. The saturation of the lower bound for the Drude weight by quasilocal conserved quantities reads the linear dependence of non-quasilocal conserved quantities on quasilocal ones. We show that their (generalized) linearly dependence relation is consistent with the statement that the GGE consists of functionally independent conserved quantities without containing all linearly independent conserved quantities.

Generalized Gibbs Ensemble and string-charge relations in nested Bethe Ansatz

The non-equilibrium steady states of integrable models are believed to be described by the Generalized Gibbs Ensemble (GGE), which involves all local and quasi-local conserved charges of the model. In this work we investigate integrable lattice models solvable by the nested Bethe Ansatz, with group symmetry SU(N)SU(N), N\ge 3N≥3. In these models the Bethe Ansatz involves various types of Bethe rapidities corresponding to the “nesting” procedure, describing the internal degrees of freedom for the excitations. We show that a complete set of charges for the GGE can be obtained from the known fusion hierarchy of transfer matrices. The resulting charges are quasi-local in a certain regime in rapidity space, and they completely fix the rapidity distributions of each string type from each nesting level.

Cumulants of conserved charges in GGE and cumulants of total transport in GHD: exact summation of matrix elements?

We obtain the cumulants of conserved charges in generalized Gibbs ensemble (GGE) by a direct summation of their finite-particle matrix elements. The Gaudin determinant that describes the norm of Bethe states is written as a sum over forests by virtue of the matrix-tree theorem. The aforementioned cumulants are then given by a sum over tree-diagrams whose Feynman rules involve simple thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz (TBA) quantities. The internal vertices of these diagrams have the interpretation of virtual particles that carry anomalous corrections to bare charges. Our derivation follows closely the spirit of recent works Kostov et al (2017 Springer Proc. Math. Stat. 255 77–98) and (2019 Nucl. Phys. B 949 114817) and is valid for all relativistic integrable QFTs with diagonal scattering matrix. We also conjecture that the cumulants of total transport in generalized hydrodynamics (GHD) are given by the same diagrams up to minor modifications. These cumulants play a central role in large deviation theory and were obtained in Myers (2018 (arXiv:1812.02082)) using linear fluctuating hydrodynamics at Euler scale. We match our conjecture with the result of Myers (2018 (arXiv:1812.02082)) up to the fourth cumulant. This highly non-trivial matching provides a strong support for our conjecture.

Spectrum of the reflection operators in different integrable structures

The reflection operators are the simplest examples of the non-local integrals of motion, which appear in many interesting problems in integrable CFT. For the so- called Fateev, quantum AKNS, paperclip and KdV integrable structures, they are built from the (chiral) reflection S-matrices for the Liouville and cigar CFTs. Here we give the full spectrum of the reflection operators associated with these integrable structures. We also obtained a relation between the reflection S-matrices of the cigar and Liouville CFTs. The results of this work are applicable for the description of the scaling behaviour of the Bethe states in exactly solvable lattice systems and may be of interest to the study of the Generalized Gibbs Ensemble associated with the above mentioned integrable structures.

The GGE averaged currents of the classical Toda chain

The Toda chain with random initial data is studied. Of particular interest are generalized Gibbs ensembles, their averaged conserved fields, and the averages of the corresponding currents. While averaged fields are well-understood, the description of averaged currents has hitherto relied on the collision-rate assumption. For the Toda chain, the rate assumption can be investigated numerically. Here, we provide convincing evidence for the validity of the rate assumption. This lends further support to the idea that generalized Euler-type equations have a structure common to all integrable extensive systems.

The first heat: production of entanglement entropy in the early universe

Entanglement entropy (EE) of a spatial region quantifies correlations between the region and its surroundings. For a free scalar in the adiabatic vacuum in de Sitter space the EE is known to remain low, scaling as the surface area of the region. Here, we study the evolution of entanglement after the universe transitions from de Sitter to flat space. We concentrate on the case of a massless minimally coupled scalar. We find numerically that, after the de Sitter stage ends, the EE and the Ŕenyi entropy rapidly grow and saturate at values obeying the volume law. The final state of the subsystem (region) is a partially thermalized state reminiscent of a generalized Gibbs ensemble. We comment on application of our results to the question of when and how cosmological perturbations decohere.

Pre-asymptotic dynamics of the infinite size Neumann (p = 2 spherical) model

In this contribution we further study the classical disordered p = 2 spherical model with Hamiltonian dynamics, or in integrable systems terms, the Neumann model, in the infinite size limit. We summarise the asymptotic results that some of us presented in a recent publication, and we deepen the analysis of the pre-asymptotic dynamics. We also discuss the possible description of the asymptotic steady state with a generalised Gibbs ensemble.

Equilibration towards generalized Gibbs ensembles in non-interacting theories

Even after almost a century, the foundations of quantum statistical mechanics are still not completely understood. In this work, we provide a precise account on these foundations for a class of systems of paradigmatic importance that appear frequently as mean-field models in condensed matter physics, namely non-interacting lattice models of fermions (with straightforward extension to bosons). We demonstrate that already the translation invariance of the Hamiltonian governing the dynamics and a finite correlation length of the possibly non-Gaussian initial state provide sufficient structure to make mathematically precise statements about the equilibration of the system towards a generalized Gibbs ensemble, even for highly non-translation invariant initial states far from ground states of non-interacting models. Whenever these are given, the system will equilibrate rapidly according to a power-law in time as long as there are no long-wavelength dislocations in the initial second moments that would render the system resilient to relaxation. Our proof technique is rooted in the machinery of Kusmin-Landau bounds. Subsequently, we numerically illustrate our analytical findings by discussing quench scenarios with an initial state corresponding to an Anderson insulator observing power-law equilibration. We discuss the implications of the results for the understanding of current quantum simulators, both in how one can understand the behaviour of equilibration in time, as well as concerning perspectives for realizing distinct instances of generalized Gibbs ensembles in optical lattice-based architectures.

Characterizations of prethermal states in periodically driven many-body systems with unbounded chaotic diffusion

We introduce well-defined characterizations of prethermal states in realistic periodically driven many-body systems with unbounded chaotic diffusion of the kinetic energy. These systems, interacting arrays of periodically kicked rotors, are paradigmatic models of many-body chaos theory. We show that the prethermal states in these systems are well described by a generalized Gibbs ensemble based essentially on the average Hamiltonian. The latter is the quasiconserved quantity in the prethermal state and the ensemble is characterized by the temperature of the state. An explicit exact expression for this temperature is derived. Using also arguments based on chaos theory, we demonstrate that the lifetime of the prethermal state is exponentially long in the inverse of the temperature, in units of the driving frequency squared. Our analytical results, in particular those for the temperature and the lifetime of the prethermal state, agree well with numerical observations.

Generalized Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis in 2D Conformal Field Theories.

Infinite-dimensional conformal symmetry in two dimensions leads to integrability of 2D conformal field theories (CFTs) by giving rise to an infinite tower of local conserved quantum Korteweg-de Vries (qKdV) charges in involution. We discuss how the presence of conserved charges constrains equilibration in 2D CFTs. We propose that in the thermodynamic limit large central charge 2D CFTs satisfy generalized eigenstate thermalization, with the values of qKdV charges forming a complete set of thermodynamically relevant quantities, which unambiguously determine expectation values of all local observables from the vacuum family. Equivalence of ensembles further provides that local properties of an eigenstate can be described by the generalized Gibbs ensemble that includes only qKdV charges. In the case of a general initial state, upon equilibration, the emerging generalized Gibbs ensemble will necessarily include negative chemical potentials and holographically will be described by a quasiclassical black hole with quantum soft hair.