Generalized Gibbs Ensemble Research Articles

Emergent eigenstate solution for generalized thermalization

Generalized thermalization is a process that occurs in integrable systems in which unitary dynamics, e.g., following a quantum quench, results in states in which observables after equilibration are described by generalized Gibbs ensembles (GGEs). Here we discuss an emergent eigenstate construction that allows one to built emergent local Hamiltonians of which one eigenstate captures the entire generalized thermalization process following a global quantum quench. Specifically, we study the emergent eigenstate that describes the quantum dynamics of hard-core bosons in one dimension (1D) for which the initial state is a density wave and they evolve under a homogeneous Hamiltonian.

Dynamics of fluctuation correlation in a periodically driven classical system

Having established the fact that interacting classical kicked rotor systems exhibit long-lived prethermal phase with quasi-conserved average Hamiltonian before entering into chaotic heating regime, we use spatio-temporal fluctuation correlation of kinetic energy to probe the above dynamic phases. We remarkably find the diffusive transport of fluctuation in the prethermal regime reminding us the underlying hydrodynamic picture in a generalized Gibbs ensemble with a definite temperature that depends on the driving parameter and initial conditions. On the other hand, the heating regime, characterized by a diffusive growth of kinetic energy, can sharply localize the correlation at the fluctuation center for all time. Consequently, we attribute non-diffusive and non-localize structure of correlation to the crossover regime, connecting the prethermal phase to the heating phase, where the kinetic energy displays complicated growth structure. We understand these numerical findings using the notion of relative phase matching where prethermal phase (heating regime) refers to an effectively coupled (isolated) nature of the rotors. We exploit the statistical uncorrelated nature of the angles of the rotors in the heating regime to find the analytical form of the correlator that mimics our numerical results in a convincing way.

Engineering generalized Gibbs ensembles with trapped ions

The concept of generalized Gibbs ensembles (GGEs) has been introduced to describe steady states of integrable models. Recent advances show that GGEs can also be stabilized in nearly integrable quantum systems when driven by external fields and open. Here, we present a weakly dissipative dynamics that drives towards a steady-state GGE and is realistic to implement in systems of trapped ions. We outline the engineering of the desired dissipation by a combination of couplings which can be realized with ion-trap setups and discuss the experimental observables needed to detect a deviation from a thermal state. We present a novel mixed-species motional mode engineering technique in an array of micro-traps and demonstrate the possibility to use sympathetic cooling to construct many-body dissipators. Our work provides a blueprint for experimental observation of GGEs in open systems and opens a new avenue for quantum simulation of driven-dissipative quantum many-body problems.

Derivation of the density operator with quantum analysis for the generalized Gibbs ensemble in quantum statistics

We derive the equation of the density operator for generalized entropy and generalized expectation value with quantum analysis when conserved quantities exist. The derived equation is simplified when the conventional expectation value is employed. The derived equation is also simplified when the commutation relations, [ρˆ,Hˆ] and [ρˆ,Qˆ[a]], are the functions of the density operator ρˆ, where Hˆ is the Hamiltonian, and Qˆ[a] is the conserved quantity. We derive the density operators for the von Neumann, Tsallis, and Rényi entropies in the case of the conventional expectation value. We also derived the density operators for the Tsallis and Rényi entropies in the case of the escort average (the normalized q-expectation value), when the density operator commutes with the Hamiltonian and the conserved quantities. We find that the argument of the density operator for the canonical ensemble is simply extended to the argument for the generalized Gibbs ensemble in the case of the conventional expectation value, even when conserved quantities do not commute. The simple extension of the argument is also shown in the case of the escort average, when the density operator ρˆ commutes with the Hamiltonian Hˆ and the conserved quantity Qˆ[a]: [ρˆ,Hˆ]=[ρˆ,Qˆ[a]]=0. These findings imply that the argument of the density operator for the canonical ensemble is simply extended to the argument for the generalized Gibbs ensemble in some systems.

Strong correlations in lossy one-dimensional quantum gases: From the quantum Zeno effect to the generalized Gibbs ensemble

We consider strong two-body losses in bosonic gases trapped in one-dimensional optical lattices. We exploit the separation of time scales typical of a system in the many-body quantum Zeno regime to establish a connection with the theory of the time-dependent generalized Gibbs ensemble. Our main result is a simple set of rate equations that capture the simultaneous action of coherent evolution and two-body losses. This treatment gives an accurate description of the dynamics of a gas prepared in a Mott insulating state and shows that its long-time behaviour deviates significantly from mean-field analyses. The possibility of observing our predictions in an experiment with $^{174}$Yb in a metastable state is also discussed.

Statistical Mechanics of an Integrable System

We provide here an explicit example of Khinchin's idea that the validity of equilibrium statistical mechanics in high dimensional systems does not depend on the details of the dynamics. This point of view is supported by extensive numerical simulation of the one-dimensional Toda chain, an integrable non-linear Hamiltonian system where all Lyapunov exponents are zero by definition. We study the relaxation to equilibrium starting from very atypical initial conditions and focusing on energy equipartion among Fourier modes, as done in the original Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou numerical experiment. We find evidence that in the general case, i.e., not in the perturbative regime where Toda and Fourier modes are close to each other, there is a fast reaching of thermal equilibrium in terms of a single temperature. We also find that equilibrium fluctuations, in particular the behaviour of specific heat as function of temperature, are in agreement with analytic predictions drawn from the ordinary Gibbs ensemble, still having no conflict with the established validity of the Generalized Gibbs Ensemble for the Toda model. Our results suggest thus that even an integrable Hamiltonian system reaches thermalization on the constant energy hypersurface, provided that the considered observables do not strongly depend on one or few of the conserved quantities. This suggests that dynamical chaos is irrelevant for thermalization in the large-$N$ limit, where any macroscopic observable reads of as a collective variable with respect to the coordinate which diagonalize the Hamiltonian. The possibility for our results to be relevant for the problem of thermalization in generic quantum systems, i.e., non-integrable ones, is commented at the end.

Generalized Gibbs Ensemble of 2D CFTs with U(1) charge from the AGT correspondence

The Generalized Gibbs Ensemble (GGE) is relevant to understand the thermalization of quantum systems with an infinite set of conserved charges. In this work, we analyze the GGE partition function of 2D Conformal Field Theories (CFTs) with a U(1) charge and quantum Benjamin-Ono2 (qBO2) hierarchy charges. We use the Alday-Gaiotto-Tachikawa (AGT) correspondence to express the thermal trace in terms of the Alba-Fateev-Litvinov-Tarnopolskiy (AFLT) basis of descendants, which diagonalizes all charges. We analyze the GGE partition function in the thermodynamic semiclassical limit, including the first order quantum correction. We find that the equality between GGE averages and primary eigenvalues of the qBO2 charges is attainable in the strict large c limit and potentially violated at the subleading 1/c order. We also obtain the finite c partition function when only the first non-trivial charge is turned on, expressed in terms of partial theta functions. Our results should be relevant to the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis for charged CFTs, Warped CFTs and effective field theory descriptions of condensed matter systems.

Subsystem complexity after a global quantum quench

We study the temporal evolution of the circuit complexity for a subsystem in harmonic lattices after a global quantum quench of the mass parameter, choosing the initial reduced density matrix as the reference state. Upper and lower bounds are derived for the temporal evolution of the complexity for the entire system. The subsystem complexity is evaluated by employing the Fisher information geometry for the covariance matrices. We discuss numerical results for the temporal evolutions of the subsystem complexity for a block of consecutive sites in harmonic chains with either periodic or Dirichlet boundary conditions, comparing them with the temporal evolutions of the entanglement entropy. For infinite harmonic chains, the asymptotic value of the subsystem complexity is studied through the generalised Gibbs ensemble.

Adiabatic formation of bound states in the one-dimensional Bose gas

We consider the 1d interacting Bose gas in the presence of time-dependent and spatially inhomogeneous contact interactions. Within its attractive phase, the gas allows for bound states of an arbitrary number of particles, which are eventually populated if the system is dynamically driven from the repulsive to the attractive regime. Building on the framework of Generalized Hydrodynamics, we analytically determine the formation of bound states in the limit of adiabatic changes in the interactions. Our results are valid for arbitrary initial thermal states and, more generally, Generalized Gibbs Ensembles.

Ergodic and Nonergodic Dual-Unitary Quantum Circuits with Arbitrary Local Hilbert Space Dimension.

Dual-unitary quantum circuits can be used to construct 1+1 dimensional lattice models for which dynamical correlations of local observables can be explicitly calculated. We show how to analytically construct classes of dual-unitary circuits with any desired level of (non-)ergodicity for any dimension of the local Hilbert space, and present analytical results for thermalization to an infinite-temperature Gibbs state (ergodic) and a generalized Gibbs ensemble (nonergodic). It is shown how a tunable ergodicity-inducing perturbation can be added to a nonergodic circuit without breaking dual unitarity, leading to the appearance of prethermalization plateaux for local observables.

Signature of Generalized Gibbs Ensemble Deviation from Equilibrium: Negative Absorption Induced by a Local Quench

When a parameter quench is performed in an isolated quantum system with a complete set of constants of motion, its out of equilibrium dynamics is considered to be well captured by the Generalized Gibbs Ensemble (GGE), characterized by a set of coefficients related to the constants of motion. We determine the most elementary GGE deviation from the equilibrium distribution that leads to detectable effects. By quenching a suitable local attractive potential in a one-dimensional electron system, the resulting GGE differs from equilibrium by only one single , corresponding to the emergence of an only partially occupied bound state lying below a fully occupied continuum of states. The effect is shown to induce optical gain, i.e., a negative peak in the absorption spectrum, indicating the stimulated emission of radiation, enabling one to identify GGE signatures in fermionic systems through optical measurements. We discuss the implementation in realistic setups.

Soliton Decomposition of the Box-Ball System

AbstractThe box-ball system (BBS) was introduced by Takahashi and Satsuma as a discrete counterpart of the Korteweg-de Vries equation. Both systems exhibit solitons whose shape and speed are conserved after collision with other solitons. We introduce a slot decomposition of ball configurations, each component being an infinite vector describing the number of sizeksolitons in eachk-slot. The dynamics of the components is linear: thekth component moves rigidly at speedk. Let$\zeta $be a translation-invariant family of independent random vectors under a summability condition and$\eta $be the ball configuration with components$\zeta $. We show that the law of$\eta $is translation invariant and invariant for the BBS. This recipe allows us to construct a large family of invariant measures, including product measures and stationary Markov chains with ball density less than$\frac {1}{2}$. We also show that starting BBS with an ergodic measure, the position of a taggedk-soliton at timet, divided bytconverges as$t\to \infty $to an effective speed$v_k$. The vector of speeds satisfies a system of linear equations related with the generalised Gibbs ensemble of conservative laws.

Relaxation to Generalized Gibbs Ensembles in Quadratic Quantum Open Systems

Integrable quantum many-body systems are considered to equilibrate to generalized Gibbs ensembles (GGEs). A general mechanism of such relaxation to GGE has been shown for unitary evolutions of exac...

Probing eigenstate thermalization in quantum simulators via fluctuation-dissipation relations

The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) offers a universal mechanism for the approach to equilibrium of closed quantum many-body systems. So far, however, experimental studies have focused on the relaxation dynamics of observables as described by the diagonal part of ETH, whose verification requires substantial numerical input. This leaves many of the general assumptions of ETH untested. Here, we propose a theory-independent route to probe the full ETH in quantum simulators by observing the emergence of fluctuation-dissipation relations, which directly probe the off-diagonal part of ETH. We discuss and propose protocols to independently measure fluctuations and dissipations as well as higher-order time ordered correlation functions. We first show how the emergence of fluctuation dissipation relations from a nonequilibrium initial state can be observed for the 2D Bose-Hubbard model in superconducting qubits or quantum gas microscopes. Then we focus on the long-range transverse field Ising model (LTFI), which can be realized with trapped ions. The LTFI exhibits rich thermalization phenomena: For strong transverse fields, we observe prethermalization to an effective magnetization-conserving Hamiltonian in the fluctuation dissipation relations. For weak transverse fields, confined excitations lead to non-thermal features resulting in a violation of the fluctuation-dissipation relations up to long times. Moreover, in an integrable region of the LTFI, thermalization to a generalized Gibbs ensemble occurs and the fluctuation-dissipation relations enable an experimental diagonalization of the Hamiltonian. Our work presents a theory-independent way to characterize thermalization in quantum simulators and paves the way to quantum simulate condensed matter pump-probe experiments.

Hybrid thermal machines: Generalized thermodynamic resources for multitasking

Thermal machines perform useful tasks--such as producing work, cooling, or heating--by exchanging energy, and possibly additional conserved quantities such as particles, with reservoirs. Here we consider thermal machines that perform more than one useful task simultaneously, terming these "hybrid thermal machines". We outline their restrictions imposed by the laws of thermodynamics and we quantify their performance in terms of efficiencies. To illustrate their full potential, reservoirs that feature multiple conserved quantities, described by generalized Gibbs ensembles, are considered. A minimal model for a hybrid thermal machine is introduced, featuring three reservoirs and two conserved quantities, e.g., energy and particle number. This model can be readily implemented in a thermoelectric setup based on quantum dots, and hybrid regimes are accessible considering realistic parameters.

(Non-equilibrium) thermodynamics of integrable models: The Generalized Gibbs Ensemble description of the classical Neumann model

We study the motion of a classical particle subject to anisotropic harmonic forces and constrained to move on the sphere. In the integrable-systems literature this problem is known as the Neumann model. We choose the spring constants in a way that makes the connection with the so-called p = 2 spherical disordered system transparent. We tackle the problem in the N → ∞ limit by introducing a soft version in which the spherical constraint is imposed only on average over initial conditions. We show that the Generalized Gibbs Ensemble, constructed with N conserved charges in involution, captures the long-time averages of all relevant observables of the soft model after sudden changes in the parameters (quenches). We reveal the full dynamic phase diagram with four different phases in which the particles' position and momentum are both extended, only the position quasi-condenses or condenses, and both condense. The scaling properties of the fluctuations allow us to establish in which of these cases the strict and soft spherical constraints are equivalent. We thus confirm the validity of the GGE hypothesis for the Neumann model on a large portion of the dynamic phase diagram.

Quantum quenches in the Dicke model: Thermalization and failure of the generalized Gibbs ensemble* *Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11147110) and the Natural Science Youth Foundation of Shanxi, China (Grant No. 2011021003).

Quantum quenches in the Dicke model were studied both in the thermodynamic limit and the finite systems. For the integrable situation in the thermodynamic limit, the generalized Gibbs ensemble can effectively describe the energy-level occupations for the quench within the normal phase, but it fails for the quench to the superradiant phase. For the finite systems which are considered non-integrable, the post quench systems were studied by comparing with the thermal ensembles. The canonical ensembles are directly available for the quench within the normal phase. With the increasing of the target coupling strength over the equilibrium phase transition critical point, sudden changes take place for the effective temperature and the distance to the thermal ensembles. The thermalization was also studied by comparing with the results of the microcanonical ensembles.

The effect of atom losses on the distribution of rapidities in the one-dimensional Bose gas

We theoretically investigate the effect of atom losses in the one-dimensional (1D) Bose gas with repulsive contact interactions, a famous quantum integrable system also known as the Lieb-Liniger gas. The generic case of KK-body losses (K=1,2,3,\dotsK=1,2,3,…) is considered. We assume that the loss rate is much smaller than the rate of intrinsic relaxation of the system, so that at any time the state of the system is captured by its rapidity distribution (or, equivalently, by a Generalized Gibbs Ensemble). We give the equation governing the time evolution of the rapidity distribution and we propose a general numerical procedure to solve it. In the asymptotic regimes of vanishing repulsion – where the gas behaves like an ideal Bose gas – and hard-core repulsion – where the gas is mapped to a non-interacting Fermi gas –, we derive analytic formulas. In the latter case, our analytic result shows that losses affect the rapidity distribution in a non-trivial way, the time derivative of the rapidity distribution being both non-linear and non-local in rapidity space.

Collision rate ansatz for quantum integrable systems

For quantum integrable systems the currents averaged with respect to a generalized Gibbs ensemble are revisited. An exact formula is known, which we call ``collision rate ansatz". While there is considerable work to confirm this ansatz in various models, our approach uses the symmetry of the current-charge susceptibility matrix, which holds in great generality. Besides some technical assumptions, the main input is the availability of a self-conserved current, i.e. some current which is itself conserved. The collision rate ansatz is then derived. The argument is carried out in detail for the Lieb-Liniger model and the Heisenberg XXZ chain. It is also explained how from the existence of a boost operator a self-conserved current can be deduced.

Noncommutative generalized Gibbs ensemble in isolated integrable quantum systems

The generalized Gibbs ensemble (GGE), which involves multiple conserved quantities other than the Hamiltonian, has served as the statistical-mechanical description of the long-time behavior for several isolated integrable quantum systems. The GGE may involve a noncommutative set of conserved quantities in view of the maximum entropy principle, and show that the GGE thus generalized (noncommutative GGE, NCGGE) gives a more qualitatively accurate description of the long-time behaviors than that of the conventional GGE. Providing a clear understanding of why the (NC)GGE well describes the long-time behaviors, we construct, for noninteracting models, the exact NCGGE that describes the long-time behaviors without an error even at finite system size. It is noteworthy that the NCGGE involves nonlocal conserved quantities, which can be necessary for describing long-time behaviors of local observables. We also give some extensions of the NCGGE and demonstrate how accurately they describe the long-time behaviors of few-body observables.