Finite speed heat transport in a quantum spin chain after quenched local cooling

Abstract

We study the dynamics of an initially thermalized spin chain in the quantum XY-model, after sudden coupling to a heat bath of lower temperature at one end of the chain. In the semi-classical limit we see an exponential decay of the system-bath heatflux by exact solution of the reduced dynamics. In the full quantum description however, we numerically find the heatflux to reach intermediate plateaus where it is approximately constant -- a phenomenon that we attribute to the finite speed of heat transport via spin waves.

13 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Preservation of Positivity by Dynamical Coarse-Graining
• Quantum instability and edge entanglement in a quasi-long-range order
• Quantum Equilibration under Constraints and Transport Balance
• Quantum Heat Baths satisfying the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis