Timescales and necessary conditions for hydrodynamization in one-dimensional Bose gases

TL;DR

This paper investigates the early-time dynamics of one-dimensional Bose gases after high-energy quenches, identifying universal timescales for hydrodynamization and their dependence on quench specifics, with implications for broader quantum systems and heavy-ion collisions.

Contribution

It reveals that hydrodynamization involves two distinct timescales and depends on the quench type, providing a universal framework applicable to various many-body quantum systems.

Findings

Hydrodynamization characterized by oscillation and damping timescales.

Existence of hydrodynamization depends on quench details.

Universal behavior applicable to other quantum systems.

Abstract

We study the quantum evolution of one-dimensional Bose gases immediately after several variants of high-energy quenches, both theoretically and experimentally. Using the advantages conveyed by the relative simplicity of these nearly integrable many-body systems, we are able to differentiate the behaviors of two distinct but often temporally overlapping processes, hydrodynamization and local prethermalization. We show that the hydrodynamization epoch is itself characterized by two independent timescales, an oscillation period and an observable-dependent damping time. We also show how the existence of a hydrodynamization epoch depends on the exact nature of the high-energy quench. There is a universal character to our findings, which can be applied to the short-time behavior of any interacting many-body quantum system after a sudden high-energy quench. We specifically discuss its potential relevance to heavy-ion collisions.