Time evolution of local observables after quenching to an integrable model

TL;DR

This paper develops a framework to understand the late-time behavior of local observables after quantum quenches in integrable models, generalizing the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis and providing a method to compute their time evolution.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized Thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz to construct a representative eigenstate and a framework for calculating the time dependence of local observables post-quench.

Findings

The framework recovers known results in the transverse-field Ising chain.

It extends the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis to integrable models.

Provides a practical method for analyzing quantum quenches in integrable systems.

Abstract

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 further, we introduce a framework for calculating the time dependence of local observables as they evolve towards their stationary values. As an explicit example we consider quantum quenches in the transverse-field Ising chain and show that previously derived results are recovered efficiently within our framework.