Thermalization near Integrability in a Dipolar Quantum Newton's Cradle

By Yijun Tang, Wil Kao, Kuan-Yu Li, Sangwon Seo, Krishnanand Mallayya, Marcos Rigol, S. Gopalakrishnan, B. Lev. 2017

201 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Isolated quantum many-body systems with integrable dynamics generically do not thermalize when taken far from equilibrium. As one perturbs such systems away from the integrable point, thermalization sets in, but the nature of the crossover from integrable to thermalizing behavior is an unresolved and actively discussed question. We explore this question by studying the dynamics of the momentum distribution function in a dipolar quantum Newton's cradle consisting of highly magnetic dysprosium atoms. This is accomplished by creating the first one-dimensional Bose gas with strong magnetic dipole-dipole interactions. These interactions provide tunability of both the strength of the integrability-breaking perturbation and the nature of the near-integrable dynamics. We provide the first experimental evidence that thermalization close to a strongly interacting integrable point occurs in two steps: prethermalization followed by near-exponential thermalization. Exact numerical calculations on a two-rung lattice model yield a similar two-timescale process, suggesting that this is generic in strongly interacting near-integrable models. Moreover, the measured thermalization rate is consistent with a parameter-free theoretical estimate, based on identifying the types of collisions that dominate thermalization. By providing tunability between regimes of integrable and nonintegrable dynamics, our work sheds light both on the mechanisms by which isolated quantum many-body systems thermalize, and on the temporal structure of the onset of thermalization.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3af91944365bb29c82719750d920edfbba7b5234

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

Citations in the corpus

Ergodicity breaking transition in finite disordered spin chains (2020, unknown): “[9] Y.”
Random Quantum Circuits (2022, background): “We focus here on experiments with quantum circuits, but note that these works follow many milestone papers probing fundamental aspects of quantum dynamics, thermalization and many-body localization on a wide variety of analog simulator platforms (282, 35, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290).”
Signatures of integrability in the dynamics of Rydberg-blockaded chains (2018, background): “initial state memory when spatial inhomogeneities are strong, and long-lived prethermal states near special integrable points [4–14].”
Transient Supersolid Properties in an Array of Dipolar Quantum Droplets (2019, background): “[39] Y.”
Ergodicity Breaking Arising from Hilbert Space Fragmentation in Dipole-Conserving Hamiltonians (2019, background): “Recent years have seen a great deal of effort—both theoretical and experimental—to understand quantum thermalization: the question of how closed quantum systems, evolving under unitary dynamics, reach a state of thermal equilibrium [1–9].”
Prethermalization and Thermalization in Isolated Quantum Systems (2018, methodology): “The fits are carried out in the interval τ ∈ [2, 6] for NLCE-16 [shown as thin continuous lines in Fig.”