Statistics of the work distribution for a quenched Fermi gas

TL;DR

This paper investigates the statistical properties of work done during a local quench in a trapped ultra-cold Fermi gas, providing insights into the universal out-of-equilibrium physics of the Fermi edge singularity and Anderson orthogonality catastrophe.

Contribution

It offers a thermodynamic analysis of the work distribution in a quenched Fermi gas, connecting out-of-equilibrium quantum phenomena with measurable statistical properties.

Findings

Work distribution statistics reveal fundamental physics of the quench.

Universal features of out-of-equilibrium Fermi gases are characterized.

Analysis supports experimental simulation of quantum quenches with ultra-cold atoms.

Abstract

The local quench of a Fermi gas, giving rise to the Fermi edge singularity and the Anderson orthogonality catastrophe, is a rare example of an analytically tractable out of equilibrium problem in condensed matter. It describes the universal physics which occurs when a localized scattering potential is suddenly introduced in a Fermi sea leading to a brutal disturbance of the quantum state. It has recently been proposed that the effect could be efficiently simulated in a controlled manner using the tunability of ultra-cold atoms. In this work, we analyze the quench problem in a gas of trapped ultra-cold fermions from a thermodynamic perspective using the full statistics of the so called work distribution. The statistics of work are shown to provide an accurate insight into the fundamental physics of the process.