For a quantum system in a macroscopically large volume $V$, prepared in a pure state and subject to maximally noisy or ergodic unitary dynamics, the reduced density matrix of any sub-system $v\ll V$ is almost surely totally mixed. We show that the fluctuations around this limiting value, evaluated according to the invariant measure of these unitary flows, are captured by the Gaussian unitary ensemble (GUE) of random matrix theory. An extension of this statement, applicable when the unitary transformations conserve the energy but are maximally noisy or ergodic on any energy shell, allows to decipher the fluctuations around canonical typicality. According to typicality, if the large system is prepared in a generic pure state in a given energy shell, the reduced density matrix of the sub-system is almost surely the canonical Gibbs state of that sub-system. We show that the fluctuations around the Gibbs state are encoded in a deformation of the GUE whose covariance is specified by the Gibbs state. Contact with the eigenstate thermalisation hypothesis (ETH) is discussed.
We discuss the content and significance of John von Neumann's quantum ergodic theorem (QET) of 1929, a strong result arising from the mere mathematical structure of quantum mechanics. The QET is a precise formulation of what we call normal typicality, i.e., the statement that, for typical large systems, every initial wave function $ψ_0$ from an energy shell is "normal": it evolves in such a way that $|ψ_t> <ψ_t|$ is, for most $t$, macroscopically equivalent to the micro-canonical density matrix. The QET has been mostly forgotten after it was criticized as a dynamically vacuous statement in sev…
We consider the dynamics of an arbitrary quantum system coupled to a large arbitrary and fully quantum mechanical environment through a random interaction. We establish analytically and check numerically the typicality of this dynamics, in other words the fact that the reduced density matrix of the system has a self-averaging property. This phenomenon, which lies in a generalized central limit theorem, justifies rigorously averaging procedures over certain classes of random interactions and can explain the absence of sensitivity to microscopic details of irreversible processes such as thermali…
We discuss the concept of typicality of quantum states at quantum-critical points, using projector Monte Carlo simulations of an $S=1/2$ bilayer Heisenberg antiferromagnet as an illustration. With the projection (imaginary) time $τ$ scaled as $τ=aL^z$, $L$ being the system length and $z$ the dynamic critical exponent (which takes the value $z=1$ in the bilayer model studied here), a critical point can be identified which asymptotically flows to the correct location and universality class with increasing $L$, independently of the prefactor $a$ and the initial state. Varying the proportionality …
One of the outstanding problems in non-equilibrium physics is to precisely understand when and how physically relevant observables in many-body systems equilibrate under unitary time evolution. General equilibration results show that equilibration is generic provided that the initial state has overlap with sufficiently many energy levels. But results not referring to typicality which show that natural initial states actually fulfill this condition are lacking. In this work, we present stringent results for equilibration for systems in which Renyi entanglement entropies in energy eigenstates wi…
The renewed interest in the foundations of quantum statistical mechanics in recent years has led us to study John von Neumann's 1929 article on the quantum ergodic theorem. We have found this almost forgotten article, which until now has been available only in German, to be a treasure chest, and to be much misunderstood. In it, von Neumann studied the long-time behavior of macroscopic quantum systems. While one of the two theorems announced in his title, the one he calls the "quantum H-theorem", is actually a much weaker statement than Boltzmann's classical H-theorem, the other theorem, which …
Despite a long history and a clear overall understanding of properties of random walks on an incipient infinite cluster in percolation, some important information on it seems to be missing in the literature. In the present work, we revisit the problem by performing massive numerical simulations for (sub)diffusion of particles on such clusters. Thus, we discuss the shape of the probability density function (PDF) of particles' displacements, and the way it converges to its long-time limiting scaling form. Moreover, we discuss the properties of the mean squared displacement (MSD) of a particle di…
We investigate non-equilibrium dynamical scaling in adiabatic quench processes across quantum multicritical points. Our analysis shows that the resulting power-law scaling depends sensitively on the control path, and that anomalous critical exponents may emerge depending on the universality class. We argue that the observed anomalous behavior originates in the fact that the dynamical excitation process takes place asymmetrically with respect to the static multicritical point, and that non-critical energy modes may play a dominant role. As a consequence, dynamical scaling requires introducing n…
Mean Field Games provide a powerful framework to analyze the dynamics of a large number of controlled objects in interaction. Though these models are much simpler than the underlying differential games they describe in some limit, their behavior is still far from being fully understood. When the system is confined, a notion of "ergodic state" has been introduced that characterizes most of the dynamics for long optimization times. Here we consider a class of models without such an ergodic state, and show the existence of a scaling solution that plays similar role. Its universality and scaling b…
We investigate the emergence of universal dynamical scaling in quantum critical spin systems adiabatically driven out of equilibrium, with emphasis on quench dynamics which involves non-isolated critical points (i.e., critical regions) and cannot be a priori described through standard scaling arguments nor time-dependent perturbative approaches. Comparing to the case of an isolated quantum critical point, we find that non-equilibrium scaling behavior of a large class of physical observables may still be explained in terms of equilibrium critical exponents. However, the latter are in general no…
We study ultraslow diffusion processes with logarithmic mean squared displacement (MSD) $\langle x^2(t)\rangle\simeq\log^γt$. Comparison of annealed continuous time random walks (CTRWs) with logarithmic waiting time distribution $ψ(τ)\simeq1/(τ\log^{1+γ}τ)$ and Sinai diffusion in quenched random landscapes shows striking similarities, despite their very different physical nature. In particular, they exhibit a weakly non-ergodic disparity of the time and ensemble averaged MSDs. Remarkably, for the CTRW we observe that the fluctuations of time averages become universal with an exponential suppre…
Local diffusion coefficients in disordered materials such as living cells are highly heterogeneous. Quenched disorder is utilized substantially to study such complex systems, whereas its analytical treatment is difficult to handle. We consider finite systems with quenched disorder in order to investigate the effects of sample disorder fluctuations and confinement on single-particle diffusivity. While the system is ergodic in a single disorder realization, the time-averaged mean squared displacement depends on the disorder, i.e., the system is ergodic but non-self-averaging. We find that the in…
Subdiffusive transport in tilted washboard potentials is studied within the fractional Fokker-Planck equation approach, using the associated continuous time random walk (CTRW) framework. The scaled subvelocity is shown to obey a universal law, assuming the form of a stationary Levy-stable distribution. The latter is defined by the index of subdiffusion alpha and the mean subvelocity only, but interestingly depends neither on the bias strength nor on the specific form of the potential. These scaled, universal subvelocity fluctuations emerge due to the weak ergodicity breaking and are vanishing …
