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Olshanii 9/24 ITAMP Colloquium
Wednesday September 24, 2008
4:30 PM Refreshments served at 4:00 PM
Institute for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular and
Optical Physics and Harvard University Physics
Department Joint Atomic Physics Colloquium
Jefferson 356
Eigenstate thermalization hypothesis and quantum thermodynamics
Maxim Olshanii
University of Massachusetts, Boston
Abstract:One of the open questions in quantum
thermodynamics reads: how can linear quantum
dynamics provide chaos necessary for
thermalization of an isolated quantum system? To
this end, we perform an ab initio numerical
analysis of a system of hard-core bosons on a
lattice and show [1] that the above controversy
can be resolved via the Eigenstate Thermalization
Hypothesis suggested by Deutsch [2] and Srednicki
[3]. According to this hypothesis, in quantum
systems thermalization happens in each individual
eigenstate of the system separately, but it is
hidden initially by coherences between them. In
course of the time evolution the thermal
properties become revealed through (linear)
decoherence that need not to be chaotic.
--
Lisa Bastille ? Administrative Coordinator ?
Institute for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular and
Optical Physics
Harvard - Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics ?
60 Garden Street, MS 14 ? Cambridge, MA 02138-1516
? phone: (617) 495-9524 ? fax: (617) 495-5970 ? email: lbastill cfa
harvard edu