Thermalization of field driven quantum systems

Abstract

There is much interest in how quantum systems thermalize after a sudden change, because unitary evolution should preclude thermalization. The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis resolves this because all observables for quantum states in a small energy window have essentially the same value; it is violated for integrable systems due to the infinite number of conserved quantities. Here, we show that when a system is driven by a DC electric field there are five generic behaviors: (i) monotonic or (ii) oscillatory approach to an infinite-temperature steady state; (iii) monotonic or (iv) oscillatory approach to a nonthermal steady state; or (v) evolution to an oscillatory state. Examining the Hubbard model (which thermalizes under a quench) and the Falicov-Kimball model (which does not), we find both exhibit scenarios (i-iv), while only Hubbard shows scenario (v). This shows richer behavior than in interaction quenches and integrability in the absence of a field plays no role.

14 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Thermalization and its mechanism for generic isolated quantum systems
• Breakdown of thermalization in finite one-dimensional systems
• Interaction Quench in the Hubbard model
• Dynamical phase transition in correlated fermionic lattice systems
• Correlated electron systems periodically driven out of equilibrium: Floquet + DMFT formalism
• Nonthermal steady states after an interaction quench in the Falicov-Kimball model
• Quenching Bloch oscillations in a strongly correlated material

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• Orbital-selective thermalization plateau in the mass imbalanced Hubbard model
• Dynamical recovery of SU(2) symmetry in the mass-quenched Hubbard model
• Quench dynamics in the one-dimensional mass-imbalanced ionic Hubbard model
• Exact solution for high harmonic generation and the response to an ac driving field for a charge density wave insulator
• Using an artificial electric field to create the analog of the red spot of Jupiter in light-heavy Fermi-Fermi mixtures of ultracold atoms