We study the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of noninteracting fermions in one dimension and in continuum space, in the presence of a delta impurity potential at the origin whose strength $g$ is varied at time $t=0$. The system is prepared in its ground state with $g=g_0=+\infty$, with two different densities and Fermi wave-vectors $k_L$ and $k_R$ on the two half-spaces $x>0$ and $x<0$ respectively. It then evolves for $t>0$ as an isolated system, with a finite impurity strength $g$. We compute exactly the time dependent density and current. For a fixed position $x$ and in the large time limit $t \to \infty$, the system reaches a non-equilibrium stationary state (NESS). We obtain analytically the correlation kernel, density, particle current, and energy current in the NESS, and characterize their relaxation, which is algebraic in time. In particular, in the NESS, we show that, away from the impurity, the particle density displays oscillations which are the non-equilibrium analog of the Friedel oscillations. In the regime of "rays", $x/t=ξ$ fixed with $x, t \to \infty$, we compute the same quantities and observe the emergence of two light cones, associated to the Fermi velocities $k_L$ and $k_R$ in the initial state. Interestingly, we find non trivial quantum correlations between two opposite rays with velocities $ξ$ and $-ξ$ which we compute explicitly. We extend to a continuum setting and to a correlated initial state the analytical methods developed in a recent work of Ljubotina, Sotiriadis and Prosen, in the context of a discrete fermionic chain with an impurity. We also generalize our results to an initial state at finite temperature, recovering, via explicit calculations, some predictions of conformal field theory in the low energy limit.
In the majority of the analytical verifications of the conjecture that the Generalised Gibbs Ensemble describes the large time asymptotics of local observables in quantum quench problems, both the post-quench and the pre-quench Hamiltonians are essentially noninteracting. We test this conjecture studying the field correlations in the more general case of an arbitrary pre-quench Hamiltonian, while keeping the post-quench one noninteracting. We first show that in the previously studied special case of a noninteracting pre-quench Hamiltonian, the validity of the conjecture is a consequence of Wic…
We provide systematic analysis on a non-Hermitian PT -symmetric quantum impurity system both in and out of equilibrium, based on exact computations. In order to understand the interplay between non-Hermiticity and Kondo physics, we focus on a prototypical noninteracting impurity system, the resonant level model, with complex coupling constants. Explicitly constructing biorthogonal basis, we study its thermodynamic properties as well as the Loschmidt echo starting from the initially disconnected two free fermion chains. Remarkably, we observe the universal crossover physics in the Loschmidt ech…
We study the properties of spin-less non-interacting fermions trapped in a confining potential in one dimension but in the presence of one or more impurities which are modelled by delta function potentials. We use a method based on the single particle Green's function. For a single impurity placed in the bulk, we compute the density of the Fermi gas near the impurity. Our results, in addition to recovering the Friedel oscillations at large distance from the impurity, allow the exact computation of the density at short distances. We also show how the density of the Fermi gas is modified when th…
We study sudden quantum quenches in which the initial states are selected to be either eigenstates of an integrable Hamiltonian that is nonmappable to a noninteracting one or a nonintegrable Hamiltonian, while the Hamiltonian after the quench is always integrable and mappable to a noninteracting one. By studying weighted energy densities and entropies, we show that quenches starting from nonintegrable (chaotic) eigenstates lead to an "ergodic" sampling of the eigenstates of the final Hamiltonian, while those starting from the integrable eigenstates do not (or at least it is not apparent for th…
We investigate the interplay between unitary dynamics after a quantum quench and localized dissipation in a noninteracting fermionic chain. In particular, we consider the effect of gain and loss processes, for which fermions are added and removed incoherently. We focus on the hydrodynamic limit of large distances from the source of dissipation and of long times, with their ratio being fixed. In this limit, the localized dissipation gives rise to an effective delta potential (dissipative impurity), and the time-evolution of the local correlation functions admits a simple hydrodynamic descriptio…
We demonstrate the role of interactions in driving the relaxation of an isolated integrable quantum system following a sudden quench. We consider a family of integrable hard-core lattice anyon models that continuously interpolates between noninteracting spinless fermions and strongly interacting hard-core bosons. A generalized Jordan-Wigner transformation maps the entire family to noninteracting fermions. We find that, aside from the singular free-fermion limit, the entire single-particle density matrix and therefore all one-body observables relax to the predictions of the generalized Gibbs en…
We investigate, in the Luttinger model with fixed box potential, the time evolution of an inhomogeneous state prepared as a localized fermion added to the noninteracting ground state. We proved that, if the state is evolved with the interacting Hamiltonian, the averaged density has two peaks moving in opposite directions, with a constant but renormalized velocity. We also proved that a dynamical `Landau quasi-particle weight' appears in the oscillating part of the averaged density, asymptotically vanishing with large time. The results are proved with the Mattis-Lieb diagonalization method. A s…
The equilibrium physics of quantum impurities frequently involves a universal crossover from weak to strong reservoir-impurity coupling, characterized by single-parameter scaling and an energy scale $T_K$ (Kondo temperature) that breaks scale invariance. For the non-interacting resonant level model, the non-equilibrium time evolution of the Loschmidt echo after a local quantum quench was recently computed explicitely [R. Vasseur, K. Trinh, S. Haas, and H. Saleur, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 240601 (2013)]. It shows single-parameter scaling with variable $T_K t$. Here, we scrutinize whether similar u…
The construction of the generalized Gibbs ensemble, to which isolated integrable quantum many-body systems relax after a quantum quench, is based upon the principle of maximum entropy. In contrast, there are no universal and model-independent laws that govern the relaxation dynamics and stationary states of open quantum systems, which are subjected to Markovian drive and dissipation. Yet, as we show, relaxation of driven-dissipative systems after a quantum quench can, in fact, be determined by a maximum entropy ensemble, if the Liouvillian that generates the dynamics of the system has parity-t…
We consider the time evolution after sudden quenches of global parameters in translational invariant Hamiltonians and study the time average expectation values and entanglement entropies in finite chains. We show that in noninteracting models the time average of spin correlation functions is asymptotically equal to the infinite time limit in the infinite chain, which is known to be described by a generalized Gibbs ensemble. The equivalence breaks down considering nonlocal operators, and we establish that this can be traced back to the existence of conservation laws common to the Hamiltonian be…
We study the time dependence of the entanglement between two quantum wires after suddenly connecting them via tunneling through an impurity. The result at large times is given by the well known formula $S(t) \approx {1\over 3}\ln {t}$. We show that the intermediate time regime can be described by a universal cross-over formula $S=F(tT_K)$, where $T_K$ is the crossover (Kondo) temperature: the function $F$ describes the dynamical "healing" of the system at large times. We discuss how to obtain analytic information about $F$ in the case of an integrable quantum impurity problem using the massles…
The emerging field of quantum thermodynamics is contributing important results and insights into archetypal many-body problems, including quantum phase transitions. Still, the question whether out-of-equilibrium quantities, such as fluctuations of work, exhibit critical scaling after a sudden quench in a closed system has remained elusive. Here, we take a novel approach to the problem by studying a quench across an impurity quantum critical point. By performing density matrix renormalization group computations on the two-impurity Kondo model, we are able to establish that the irreversible work…
We investigate the relaxation dynamics of the integrable Lieb-Liniger model of contact-interacting bosons in one dimension following a sudden quench of the collisional interaction strength. The system is initially prepared in its noninteracting ground state and the interaction strength is then abruptly switched to a positive value, corresponding to repulsive interactions between the bosons. We calculate equal-time correlation functions of the nonequilibrium Bose field for small systems of up to five particles via symbolic evaluation of coordinate Bethe-ansatz expressions for operator matrix el…
We study the spreading of correlations after a local quench in a non-relativistic quantum field theory. We focus on noninteracting non-relativistic fermions and study the time evolution after two identical systems in their ground states are suddenly joined together with a localized impurity at the junction. We find that, even if the quasi-particles of the system have unbounded dispersion, the correlations show light cone effects. We carry out a detailed study of these effects by developing an accurate asymptotic expansion of the two-point function and determining exactly the density of particl…
Quantum entanglement and its main quantitative measures, the entanglement entropy and entanglement negativity, play a central role in many body physics. An interesting twist arises when the system considered has symmetries leading to conserved quantities: Recent studies introduced a way to define, represent in field theory, calculate for 1+1D conformal systems, and measure, the contribution of individual charge sectors to the entanglement measures between different parts of a system in its ground state. In this paper, we apply these ideas to the time evolution of the charge-resolved contributi…
Particle fractionalization is believed to orchestrate the physics of many strongly correlated systems, yet its direct experimental detection remains a challenge. We propose a simple measurement for an ultracold matter system, in which correlations in initially decoupled 1D chains are imprinted via quantum quench upon two-dimensional Dirac fermions. Luttinger liquid correlations launch relativistic "fractionalization waves" along the chains, while coupling noninteracting chains induces perpendicular dispersion. These could be easily distinguished in an ultracold gas experiment.
We study the dynamics of quantum information and of quantum correlations after a quantum quench, in transverse field Ising chains subject to generic linear dissipation. As we show, in the hydrodynamic limit of long times, large system sizes, and weak dissipation, entropy-related quantities -- such as the von Neumann entropy, the Rényi entropies, and the associated mutual information -- admit a simple description within the so-called quasiparticle picture. Specifically, we analytically derive a hydrodynamic formula, recently conjectured for generic noninteracting systems, which allows us to dem…
