Quench dynamics and relaxation of a spin coupled to interacting leads

TL;DR

This paper investigates the non-equilibrium dynamics of a magnetic impurity coupled to interacting Hubbard chains, revealing how interactions influence relaxation and propagation of spin, charge, and entanglement after a quantum quench.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of quench dynamics in a Kondo impurity coupled to Luttinger liquids using tDMRG, including an analytical expression for impurity magnetization relaxation.

Findings

Faster decay of local magnetization with increased interaction.

Light-cone velocities relate to holon and spinon dispersion.

Analytical relaxation expression matches tDMRG results at intermediate times.

Abstract

We study a quantum quench in which a magnetic impurity is suddenly coupled to Hubbard chains, whose low-energy physics is described by Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory. Using the time-dependent density-matrix renormalization-group (tDMRG) technique, we analyze the propagation of charge, spin and entanglement in the chains after the quench and relate the light-cone velocities to the dispersion of holons and spinons. We find that the local magnetization at the impurity site decays faster if we increase the interaction in the chains, even though the spin velocity decreases. We derive an analytical expression for the relaxation of the impurity magnetization which is in good agreement with the tDMRG results at intermediate timescales, providing valuable insight into the time evolution of the Kondo screening cloud in interacting systems.