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 language | English |
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Article number | 180601 |
Journal | Physical Review Letters |
Volume | 115 |
Issue number | 18 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 29 Oct 2015 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2015 American Physical Society.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Physics and Astronomy