Eigenstate Fluctuation Theorem in the Short and Long Time Regimes

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the fluctuation theorem holds in quantum many-body systems starting from a single energy eigenstate, in both short and long time regimes, bridging the gap between canonical and eigenstate thermalization perspectives.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical and numerical proof that the fluctuation theorem applies even when the initial state is a single energy eigenstate, using ETH and Lieb-Robinson bounds.

Findings

Fluctuation theorem holds in both short and long time regimes from a single eigenstate.

Numerical verification with exact diagonalization of hard-core bosons.

The results unify canonical ensemble and eigenstate thermalization in fluctuation theorems.

Abstract

The canonical ensemble plays a crucial role in statistical mechanics in and out of equilibrium. For example, the standard derivation of the fluctuation theorem relies on the assumption that the initial state of the heat bath is the canonical ensemble. On the other hand, the recent progress in the foundation of statistical mechanics has revealed that a thermal equilibrium state is not necessarily described by the canonical ensemble but can be a quantum pure state or even a single energy eigenstate, as formulated by the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH). Then, a question raised is how these two pictures, the canonical ensemble and a single energy eigenstate as a thermal equilibrium state, are compatible in the fluctuation theorem. In this paper, we theoretically and numerically show that the fluctuation theorem holds in both of the long and short-time regimes, even when the initial state of the bath is a single energy eigenstate of a many-body system. Our proof of the fluctuation theorem in the long-time regime is based on the ETH, while it was previously shown in the short-time regime on the basis of the Lieb-Robinson bound and the ETH [Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 100601 (2017)]. The proofs for these time regimes are theoretically independent and complementary, implying the fluctuation theorem in the entire time domain. We also perform a systematic numerical simulation of hard-core bosons by exact diagonalization and verify the fluctuation theorem in both of the time regimes by focusing on the finite-size scaling. Our results contribute to the understanding of the mechanism that the fluctuation theorem emerges from unitary dynamics of quantum many-body systems, and can be tested by experiments with, e.g., ultracold atoms.