Quantum Quench in the Transverse Field Ising Chain II: Stationary State Properties

The aim of this article is to give a pedagogical introduction to the exact equilibrium and nonequilibrium properties of free fermionic quantum spin chains. In a first part we present in full details the canonical diagonalisation procedure and review quickly the equilibrium dynamical properties. The phase diagram is analysed and possible phase transitions are discussed. The two next chapters are concerned with the effect of aperiodicity and quenched disorder on the critical pr...

We consider quantum quenches in integrable models. We argue that the behaviour of local observables at late times after the quench is given by their expectation values with respect to a single representative Hamiltonian eigenstate. This can be viewed as a generalization of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis to quantum integrable models. We present a method for constructing this representative state by means of a generalized Thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz (GTBA). Going furth...

Fluctuation-dissipation relations, i.e., the relation between two-time correlation and linear response functions, were successfully used to search for signs of equilibration and to identify effective temperatures in the non-equilibrium behavior of a number of macroscopic classical and quantum systems in contact with thermal baths. Among the most relevant cases in which the effective temperatures thus defined were shown to have a thermodynamic meaning one finds the stationary ...

Dynamic correlation and response functions of classical and quantum systems in thermal equilibrium are connected by fluctuation-dissipation theorems, which allow an alternative definition of their (unique) temperature. Motivated by this fundamental property, we revisit the issue of thermalization of closed many-body quantum systems long after a sudden quench, focussing on the non-equilibrium dynamics of the Ising chain in a critical transverse field. We show the emergence of ...

We study the out-of-equilibrium probability distribution function of the local order parameter in the transverse field Ising quantum chain. Starting from a fully polarised state, the relaxation of the ferromagnetic order is analysed: we obtain a full analytical description of the late-time stationary distribution by means of a remarkable relation to the partition function of a 3-states classical model. Accordingly, depending on the phase whereto the post-quench Hamiltonian be...

We consider the full probability distribution for the transverse magnetization of a finite subsystem in the transverse field Ising chain. We derive a determinant representation of the corresponding characteristic function for general Gaussian states. We consider applications to the full counting statistics in the ground state, finite temperature equilibrium states, non-equilibrium steady states and time evolution after global quantum quenches. We derive an analytical expressi...

We study the unitary dynamics and the thermalization properties of free-fermion-like Hamiltonians after a sudden quantum quench, extending the results of S. Ziraldo et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 247205 (2012)]. With analytical and numerical arguments, we show that the existence of a stationary state and its description with a generalized Gibbs ensemble (GGE) depend crucially on the observable considered (local versus extensive) and on the localization properties of the final ...

We study the quantum relaxation of the two-dimensional transverse-field Ising model after global quenches with a real-time variational Monte Carlo method and address the question whether this non-integrable, two-dimensional system thermalizes or not. We consider both interaction quenches in the paramagnetic phase and field quenches in the ferromagnetic phase and compare the time-averaged probability distributions of non-conserved quantities like magnetization and correlation ...

Statistical mechanics can predict thermal equilibrium states for most classical systems, but for an isolated quantum system there is no general understanding on how equilibrium states dynamically emerge from the microscopic Hamiltonian. For instance, quantum systems that are near-integrable usually fail to thermalize in an experimentally realistic time scale and, instead, relax to quasi-stationary prethermal states that can be described by statistical mechanics when approxima...

The generalized Gibbs ensemble has been shown to be relevant in the relaxation of a completely integrable system subject to a quantum quench, in the sense that it accurately predicts the steady values of some physical variables. We proceed to further question its relevance by giving the quenched system a second quench. The concern is whether the generalized Gibbs ensemble can also accurately predict the relaxed system's response to the second quench. Two case studies with the...