Quasiparticle explanation of "weak thermalization" regime under quench in a non-integrable quantum spin chain

TL;DR

This paper explains the persistent oscillations observed in a non-integrable quantum spin chain after a quench by modeling them as quasiparticle gap oscillations, and discusses their decay over long times.

Contribution

It introduces a quasiparticle-based explanation for weak thermalization and long-time oscillations in a non-integrable quantum spin chain after a quench.

Findings

Oscillations are linked to quasiparticle gap frequencies.

Oscillations decay over long times, even under approximations that weaken thermalization.

Decay times depend on boson density in related models.

Abstract

Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis provides one picture of thermalization in a quantum system by looking at individual eigenstates. However, it is also important to consider how local observables reach equilibrium values dynamically. Quench protocol is one of the settings to study such questions. A recent numerical study [Ba\~{n}uls, Cirac, and Hastings, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 050405 (2011)] of a nonintegrable quantum Ising model with longitudinal field under such quench setting found different behaviors for different initial quantum states. One particular case called "weak thermalization" regime showed apparently persistent oscillations of some observables. Here we provide an explanation of such oscillations. We note that the corresponding initial state has low energy density relative to the ground state of the model. We then use perturbation theory near the ground state and identify the oscillation frequency as essentially a quasiparticle gap. With this quasiparticle picture, we can then address the long-time behavior of the oscillations. Upon making additional approximations which intuitively should only make thermalization weaker, we argue that the oscillations nevertheless decay in the long time limit. As part of our arguments, we also consider a quench from a BEC to a hard-core boson model in one dimension. We find that the expectation value of a single-boson creation operator oscillates but decays exponentially in time, while a pair-boson creation operator has oscillations with a $t^{-3/2}$ decay in time. We also study dependence of the decay time on the density of bosons in the low-density regime and use this to estimate decay time for oscillations in the original spin model.