This Colloquium gives an overview of recent theoretical and experimental progress in the area of nonequilibrium dynamics of isolated quantum systems There is particularly a focus on quantum quenches: the temporal evolution following a sudden or slow change of the coupling constants of the system Hamiltonian Several aspects of the slow dynamics in driven systems are discussed and the universality of such dynamics in gapless systems with specific focus on dynamics near continuous quantum phase transitions is emphasized Recent progress on understanding thermalization in closed systems through the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis is also reviewed and relaxation in integrable systems is discussed Finally key experiments probing quantum dynamics in cold atom systems are overviewed and put into the context of our current theoretical understanding

Colloquium: Nonequilibrium dynamics of closed interacting quantum systems

Physical Review B

Journal of Statistical Mechanics: theory and experiment

We give a general introduction to quantum phase transitions in strongly-correlated electron systems. These transitions which occur at zero temperature when a non-thermal parameter $g$ like pressure, chemical composition or magnetic field is tuned to a critical value are characterized by a dynamic exponent $z$ related to the energy and length scales $\Delta$ and $\xi$. Simple arguments based on an expansion to first order in the effective interaction allow to define an upper-critical dimension $D_{C}=4$ (where $D=d+z$ and $d$ is the spatial dimension) below which mean-field description is no longer valid. We emphasize the role of pertubative renormalization group (RG) approaches and self-consistent renormalized spin fluctuation (SCR-SF) theories to understand the quantum-classical crossover in the vicinity of the quantum critical point with generalization to the Kondo effect in heavy-fermion systems. Finally we quote some recent inelastic neutron scattering experiments performed on heavy-fermions which lead to unusual scaling law in $\omega /T$ for the dynamical spin susceptibility revealing critical local modes beyond the itinerant magnetism scheme and mention new attempts to describe this local quantum critical point.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0102119.pdf

Quantum Phase Transitions

It is a fundamental assumption of statistical mechanics that a closed system with many degrees of freedom ergodically samples all equal energy points in phase space. To understand the limits of this assumption, it is important to find and study systems that are not ergodic, and thus do not reach thermal equilibrium. A few complex systems have been proposed that are expected not to thermalize because their dynamics are integrable. Some nearly integrable systems of many particles have been studied numerically, and shown not to ergodically sample phase space. However, there has been no experimental demonstration of such a system with many degrees of freedom that does not approach thermal equilibrium. Here we report the preparation of out-of-equilibrium arrays of trapped one-dimensional (1D) Bose gases, each containing from 40 to 250 87Rb atoms, which do not noticeably equilibrate even after thousands of collisions. Our results are probably explainable by the well-known fact that a homogeneous 1D Bose gas with point-like collisional interactions is integrable. Until now, however, the time evolution of out-of-equilibrium 1D Bose gases has been a theoretically unsettled issue, as practical factors such as harmonic trapping and imperfectly point-like interactions may compromise integrability. The absence of damping in 1D Bose gases may lead to potential applications in force sensing and atom interferometry.

http://absimage.aps.org/image/DAMOP06/MWS_DAMOP06-2006-000603.pdf

A quantum Newton's cradle

Quantum Phase Transitions in Transverse Field Spin Models: Role of Quenched Disorder

We review quantum phase transitions of spin systems in transverse magnetic fields taking the examples of the spin-1/2 Ising and XY models in a transverse field. Beginning with an overview of quantum phase transitions, we introduce a number of model Hamiltonians. We provide exact solutions in one spatial dimension connecting them to conformal field theoretical studies. We also discuss Kitaev models and some other exactly solvable spin systems. Studies of quantum phase transitions in the presence of quenched randomness and with frustrating interactions are presented in detail. We discuss novel phenomena like Griffiths-McCoy singularities. We then turn to more recent topics like information theoretic measures of the quantum phase transitions in these models such as concurrence, entanglement entropy, quantum discord and quantum fidelity. We then focus on non-equilibrium dynamics of a variety of transverse field systems across quantum critical points and lines. After mentioning rapid quenching studies, we dwell on slow dynamics and discuss the Kibble-Zurek scaling for the defect density following a quench across critical points and its modifications for quenching across critical lines, gapless regions and multicritical points. Topics like the role of different quenching schemes, local quenching, quenching of models with random interactions and quenching of a spin chain coupled to a heat bath are touched upon. The connection between non-equilibrium dynamics and quantum information theoretic measures is presented at some length. We indicate the connection between Kibble-Zurek scaling and adiabatic evolution of a state as well as the application of adiabatic dynamics as a tool of a quantum optimization technique known as quantum annealing. The final section is dedicated to a detailed discussion on recent experimental studies of transverse Ising-like systems.

Transverse Field Spin Models: From Statistical Physics to Quantum Information

In this review, we study the quenching dynamics of a one-dimensional XY Hamiltonian in a transverse field under linear variation of different parameters of the Hamiltonian so that the system is driven through various critical points and gapless lines It is observed that the density of defects falls off as a power law with the quenching rate $1/\tau$ where the power law is determined by the dimensionality of the underlying lattice and the critical exponents associated with the quantum critical point as predicted by Kibble-Zurek scaling However, we show that when the system is driven through a multicritical point or along a gapless line, Kibble Zurek scaling needs to be modified We discuss generalized scaling forms of the defect density for the above two situations

Defect production due to quenching through a multicritical point and along a gapless line

Quantum Phase Transitions in Transverse Field Spin Models: Experimental Realizations of Transverse Field Ising Systems

We use a new quenching scheme to study the dynamics of a one-dimensional anisotropic $XY$ spin-1/2 chain in the presence of a transverse field which alternates between the values $h+\de$ and $h-\de$ from site to site. In this quenching scheme, the parameter denoting the anisotropy of interaction ($\ga$) is linearly quenched from $-\infty$ to $ +\infty$ as $\ga = t/\tau$, keeping the total strength of interaction $J$ fixed. The system traverses through a gapless phase when $\ga$ is quenched along the critical surface $h^2 = \de^2 + J^2$ in the parameter space spanned by $h$, $\de$ and $\ga$. By mapping to an equivalent two-level Landau-Zener problem, we show that the defect density in the final state scales as $1/\tau^{1/3}$, a behavior that has not been observed in previous studies of quenching through a gapless phase. We also generalize the model incorporating additional alternations in the anisotropy or in the strength of the interaction, and derive an identical result under a similar quenching. Based on the above results, we propose a general scaling of the defect density with the quenching rate $\tau$ for quenching along a gapless critical line.

Uma Divakaran

Papers

Quantum Phase Transitions in Transverse Field Spin Models: Role of Quenched Disorder

Transverse Field Spin Models: From Statistical Physics to Quantum Information

Defect production due to quenching through a multicritical point and along a gapless line

Quantum Phase Transitions in Transverse Field Spin Models: Experimental Realizations of Transverse Field Ising Systems

Quenching along a gapless line: a new exponent for defect density