Probing the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of two interacting atoms

TL;DR

This paper investigates the out-of-equilibrium behavior of two interacting atoms in a one-dimensional trap after a quench, revealing how dynamics depend on interaction strength and can lead to phenomena like the orthogonality catastrophe.

Contribution

It introduces a variational Lagrange-mesh method to analyze the spectral and dynamical properties of two atoms post-quench, highlighting the tunability of their out-of-equilibrium dynamics.

Findings

Identification of distinct scattering states and collective oscillations.

Dependence of dynamics on interaction strength.

Potential to reach the orthogonality catastrophe in few-body systems.

Abstract

We study the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of two interacting atoms in a one-dimensional harmonic trap after a quench by a tightly pinned impurity atom. We make use of an approximate variational calculation called the Lagrange-mesh method to solve the Schr\"odinger equation as a function of inter-particle interaction and impurity quench strength. We investigate the out-of-equilibrium dynamics by calculating the Loschmidt echo which quantifies the irreversibility of the system following the quench, while its probability distribution after long times can be used to identify distinct dynamical regimes. These quantities are related to the spectral function which describes the full dynamical spectrum, and we show through a thorough examination of the parameter space the existence of distinct scattering states and collective oscillations. This work demonstrates how these dynamics are strongly dependent on the interaction strength between the atoms and may be tuned to reach the orthogonality catastrophe in few-body systems.