Thermalized non-equilibrated matter and high temperature superconducting state in quantum many-body systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces the concept of thermalized non-equilibrated matter, which retains phase memory despite energy relaxation, and suggests it resembles a high-temperature superconducting state in quantum many-body systems.

Contribution

It presents evidence that phase relaxation can be vastly longer than energy relaxation in highly-excited nuclei and links this to a superconducting-like state in quantum many-body systems.

Findings

Phase relaxation can be 8 or more orders of magnitude longer than energy relaxation.

Thermalized non-equilibrated matter exhibits properties similar to high-temperature superconductors.

Analysis of photonuclear reaction data supports the existence of long-lived phase coherence.

Abstract

A characteristic feature of thermalized non-equilibrated matter is that, in spite of energy relaxation--equilibration, a phase memory of the way the many-body system was excited remains. As an example, we analyze data on a strong forward peaking of thermal proton yield in the Bi($\gamma$,p) photonuclear reaction. New analysis shows that the phase relaxation in highly-excited heavy nuclei can be 8 orders of magnitude or even much longer than the energy relaxation. We argue that thermalized non-equilibrated matter resembles a high temperature superconducting state in quantum many-body systems. We briefly present results on the time-dependent correlation function of the many-particle density fluctuations for such a superconducting state. It should be of interest to experimentally search for manifestations of thermalized non-equilibrated matter in many-body mesoscopic systems and nanostructures.