Olshanii 9/24 ITAMP Colloquium

[Lisa Bastille <lbastill cfa harvard edu>]

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 [Marcos Rigol, Vanja Dunjko & 
Maxim Olshanii, Nature 452, 854 (2008)] that the 
above controversy can be resolved via the 
Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis suggested by 
Deutsch [J. M. Deutsch, Phys. Rev. A 43, 2046 
(1991)] and Srednicki [M. Srednicki, Phys. Rev. E 
50, 888 (1994)]. 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