Prethermalization and Thermalization in Models with Weak Integrability Breaking

Bruno Bertini, Fabian H.L. Essler, Stefan Groha, Neil J. Robinson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We study the effects of integrability-breaking perturbations on the nonequilibrium evolution of many-particle quantum systems. We focus on a class of spinless fermion models with weak interactions. We employ equation of motion techniques that can be viewed as generalizations of quantum Boltzmann equations. We benchmark our method against time-dependent density matrix renormalization group computations and find it to be very accurate as long as interactions are weak. For small integrability breaking, we observe robust prethermalization plateaux for local observables on all accessible time scales. Increasing the strength of the integrability-breaking term induces a "drift" away from the prethermalization plateaux towards thermal behavior. We identify a time scale characterizing this crossover.

Original languageEnglish
Article number180601
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume115
Issue number18
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 29 Oct 2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 American Physical Society.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Prethermalization and Thermalization in Models with Weak Integrability Breaking'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this