The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis provides a framework for understanding thermalization in isolated quantum many-body systems by characterizing statistical properties of local observables in energy eigenstates. Here we demonstrate that distributions of matrix elements in macroscopic systems may depend not only on the macrostate parameters, such as the densities of local conserved charges, but generally also on the properties of ensembles used in sampling eigenstates. To this end, we depart from the conventional analysis of microcanonical windows and consider statistical ensembles with an adjustable scale parameter prescribing the magnitude of charge fluctuations. We specifically consider an integrable field theory that permits efficient numerical sampling of matrix elements and reliable extrapolation to the thermodynamic limit. Moreover, in this system, we identify a class of states that enables explicit closed-form computation of the suppression rate of matrix elements. Our findings reveal an underlying multiscale structure of matrix elements captured by a non-analytic fluctuation-scale dependence of algebraic exponents governing their statistical properties.
Eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) is discussed. We show that one common formulation of ETH does not necessarily imply thermalization of an observable of isolated many body quantum system. To get thermalization one has to postulate the canonical or microcanonical distribution in the ETH-ansatz. More generally, any other average can be postulated in the generalized ETH-ansatz which leads to a corresponding equilibration condition.
The clustering property of an equilibrium bipartite correlation is one of the most general thermodynamic properties in non-critical many-body quantum systems. Herein, we consider the thermalization properties of a system class exhibiting the clustering property. We investigate two regimes, namely, regimes of high and low density of states corresponding to high and low energy regimes, respectively. We show that the clustering property is connected to several properties on the eigenstate thermalization through the density of states. Remarkably, the eigenstate thermalization is obtained in the lo…
The Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) has played a major role in understanding thermodynamic phenomena in closed quantum systems. However, its connection to the timescale of thermalization for open system dynamics has remained elusive. This paper establishes a rigorous link between ETH and fast thermalization to the global Gibbs state. Specifically, we demonstrate fast thermalization for a system coupled weakly to a bath of quasi-free Fermions that we refresh periodically. To describe the joint evolution, we derive a finite-time version of Davies' generator with explicit error bounds …
Quantum thermalization is well understood via the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH). The general form of ETH, describing all the relevant correlations of matrix elements, may be derived on the basis of a `typicality' argument of invariance with respect to local rotations involving nearby energy levels. In this work, we uncover the close relation between this perspective on ETH and Free Probability theory, as applied to a thermal ensemble or an energy shell. This mathematical framework allows one to reduce in a straightforward way higher-order correlation functions to a decomposition g…
Under the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH), quantum-quenched systems equilibrate towards canonical, thermal ensembles. While at first glance the ETH might seem a very strong hypothesis, we show that it is indeed not only sufficient but also necessary for thermalization. More specifically, we consider systems coupled to baths with well-defined macroscopic temperature and show that whenever all product states thermalize then the ETH must hold. Our result definitively settles the question of determining whether a quantum system has a thermal behaviour, reducing it to checking whether it…
The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) postulates that the energy eigenstates of an isolated many-body system are thermal, i.e., each of them already yields practically the same expectation values as the microcanonical ensemble at the same energy. Here, we review, compare, and extend some recent approaches to corroborate this hypothesis and discuss the implications for the system's equilibration and thermalization.
We propose a general method to embed target states into the middle of the energy spectrum of a many-body Hamiltonian as its energy eigenstates. Employing this method, we construct a translationally-invariant local Hamiltonian with no local conserved quantities, which does not satisfy the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis. The absence of eigenstate thermalization for target states is analytically proved and numerically demonstrated. In addition, numerical calculations of two concrete models also show that all the energy eigenstates except for the target states have the property of eigenstate…
Nonequilibrium dynamics of a nonintegrable system without the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis is studied. It is shown that, in the thermodynamic limit, this model thermalizes after an arbitrary quantum quench at finite temperature, although it does not satisfy the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis. In contrast, when the system size is finite and the temperature is low enough, the system may not thermalize. In this case, the steady state is well described by the generalized Gibbs ensemble constructed by using highly nonlocal conserved quantities. We also show that this model exhibits pr…
We study the fluctuations of eigenstate expectation values in a microcanonical ensemble. Assuming the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, an analytical formula for the finite-size scaling of the fluctuations is derived. The same problem was studied by Beugeling et al. [Phys. Rev. E 89, 042112 (2014)]. We compare our results with theirs.
We study eigenstate thermalization and related signatures of quantum chaos in the one-dimensional ferromagnetic transverse-field Ising model with power-law interactions. The presence of long-range interactions allows for a finite-temperature phase transition despite the one-dimensional geometry of the model. Unlike previous studies of eigenstate thermalization in non-disordered systems with finite temperature phase transitions, our model possesses sufficiently many energy eigenstates below the critical energy density to allow us to make a definitive statement about the presence of eigenstate t…
Eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) is discussed. We point out that the common formulation of the ETH suffers from the mixing of random and deterministic variables. We suggest a modified formulation of the ETH which includes only deterministic variables. We also show that this formulation of the ETH implies thermalization as well.
We investigate the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) in d+1 dimensional conformal field theories by studying reduced density matrices in energy eigenstates. We show that if local probes of high energy primary eigenstates satisfy ETH, then any finite energy observable with support on a subsystem of finite size satisfies ETH. In two dimensions, we discover that if ETH holds locally, the finite size reduced density matrix of states created by heavy primary operators is well-approximated by a projection to the Virasoro identity block.
We develop a class of matrix models which implement and formalize the `eigenstate thermalization hypothesis' (ETH) and point out that in general these models must contain non-Gaussian corrections, already in order to correctly capture thermal mean-field theory, or to capture non-trivial OTOCs as well as their higher-order generalizations. We develop the framework of these `ETH matrix models', and put it in the context of recent studies in statistical physics incorporating higher statistical moments into the ETH ansatz. We then use the `ETH matrix model' in order to develop a matrix-integral de…
Having analytical instances of the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) is of obvious interest, both for fundamental and applied reasons. This is generically a hard task, due to the belief that non-linear interactions are basic ingredients of the thermalization mechanism. In this article we proof that random gaussian free fermions satisfy ETH in the multiparticle sector, by analytically computing the correlations and entanglement entropies of the theory. With the explicit construction at hand, we finally comment on the differences between fully random Hamiltonians and random Gaussian sys…
The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) insists that for nonintegrable systems each energy eigenstate accurately gives microcanonical expectation values for a class of observables. As a mechanism for ETH to hold, we show that the energy eigenstates are superposition of uncountably many quasi eigenstates of operationally defined "time operator", which are thermal for thermodynamic isolated quantum many-body systems and approximately orthogonal in terms of extremely short relaxation time of the fidelity. In this way, our scenario provides a theoretical explanation of ETH.
A plausible mechanism of thermalization in isolated quantum systems is based on the strong version of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), which states that all the energy eigenstates in the microcanonical energy shell have thermal properties. We numerically investigate the ETH by focusing on the large deviation property, which directly evaluates the ratio of athermal energy eigenstates in the energy shell. As a consequence, we have systematically confirmed that the strong ETH is indeed true even for near-integrable systems, where we found that the finite-size scaling of the ratio o…
The Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) implies a form for the matrix elements of local operators between eigenstates of the Hamiltonian, expected to be valid for chaotic systems. Another signal of chaos is a positive Lyapunov exponent, defined on the basis of Loschmidt echo or out-of-time-order correlators. For this exponent to be positive, correlations between matrix elements unrelated by symmetry, usually neglected, have to exist. The same is true for the peak of the dynamic heterogeneity length, relevant for systems with slow dynamics. These correlations, as well as those between el…
Bypassing eigenstate thermalization with experimentally accessible quantum dynamics
JILA and Center for Theory of Quantum Matter, Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder（科罗拉多大学博尔德分校物理系量子物质理论中心及JILA）；University of Colorado, Boulder（科罗拉多大学博尔德分校）
We investigate the eigenstate thermalization properties of the spin-1/2 $XXZ$ model in two-dimensional rectangular lattices of size $L_1\times L_2$ under periodic boundary conditions. Exploiting the symmetry property, we can perform an exact diagonalization study of the energy eigenvalues up to system size $4\times 7$ and of the energy eigenstates up to $4\times 6$. Numerical analysis of the Hamiltonian eigenvalue spectrum and matrix elements of an observable in the Hamiltonian eigenstate basis supports that the two-dimensional $XXZ$ model follows the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis. When…
We use field-theoretic methods to explore the statistics of eigenfunctions of the Floquet operator for a large family of Floquet random quantum circuits. The correlation function of the quasienergy eigenstates is calculated and shown to exhibit random matrix circular unitary ensemble statistics, which is consistent with the analogue of Berry's conjecture for quantum circuits. This quantity determines all key metrics of quantum chaos, such as the spectral form factor and thermalizing time-dependence of the expectation value of an arbitrary observable. It also allows us to explicitly show that t…
Eigenstate thermalization is widely accepted as the mechanism behind thermalization in generic isolated quantum systems. Using the example of a single magnetic defect embedded in the integrable spin-1/2 $XXZ$ chain, we show that locally perturbing an integrable system can give rise to eigenstate thermalization. Unique to such setups is the fact that thermodynamic and transport properties of the unperturbed integrable chain emerge in properties of the eigenstates of the perturbed (nonintegrable) one. Specifically, we show that the diagonal matrix elements of observables in the perturbed eigenst…
We discuss eigenstate correlations for ergodic, spatially extended many-body quantum systems, in terms of the statistical properties of matrix elements of local observables. While the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) is known to give an excellent description of these quantities, the butterfly effect implies structure beyond ETH. We determine the universal form of this structure at long distances and small eigenvalue separations for Floquet systems. We use numerical studies of a Floquet quantum circuit to illustrate both the accuracy of ETH and the existence of our predicted additiona…
Generic ETH: Eigenstate Thermalization beyond the Microcanonical
The University of Texas at Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校）；Pennsylvania State University（宾夕法尼亚州立大学）；Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University（冲绳科学技术大学院大学）；Syracuse University（雪城大学）；Sarah Lawrence College（莎拉劳伦斯学院）
We investigate dynamical equilibration of expectation values in closed quantum systems for realistic non-equilibrium initial states. Thereby we find that the corresponding long time expectation values depend on the initial expectation values if eigenstate thermalization is violated. An analytical expression for the deviation from the expected ensemble value is derived for small displacements from equilibrium. Additional numerics for magnetization and energy equilibration in an asymmetric anisotropic spin-1/2-ladder demonstrate that the analytical predictions persist beyond the limits of the th…
We consider the set of all initial states within a microcanonical energy shell of an isolated many-body quantum system, which exhibit the same, arbitrary but fixed non-equilibrium expectation value for some given observable $A$. On condition that this set is not too small, it is shown by means of a dynamical typicality approach that most such initial states exhibit thermalization if and only if $A$ satisfies the so-called weak eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (wETH). Here, thermalization means that the expectation value of $A$ spends most of its time close to the microcanonical value after…
A strongly non-integrable system is expected to satisfy the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, which states that the expectation value of an observable in an energy eigenstate is the same as the thermal value. This must be revised if the observable is an order parameter for a spontaneously broken symmetry, which has multiple thermal values. We propose that in this case the system is unstable towards forming nearby eigenstates which yield each of the allowed thermal values. We provide strong evidence for this from a numerical study of the 2D transverse-field quantum Ising model.
This paper is a Reply paper to the Comment paper by Mondaini et.al. [arXiv:1711.06279]. We first distinguish the diagonal and the off-diagonal eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) in each sector and in the whole Hilbert space, and then clarify their properties and their roles in thermalization. We argue that our formulation of the ETH in our letter is a standard and natural one in the context of thermalization, and that our results are qualitatively new and unexpected.
We show that macroscopic thermalization and transport impose constraints on matrix elements entering the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) ansatz and require them to be correlated. It is often assumed that the ETH reduces to Random Matrix Theory (RMT) below the Thouless energy scale. We show this conventional picture is not self-consistent. We prove that energy scale at which the RMT behavior emerges has to be parametrically smaller than the inverse timescale of the slowest thermalization mode coupled to the operator of interest. We argue that the timescale marking the onset of the RM…
In a recent Letter [PhysRevLett.119.030601 (2017), arXiv:1702.08227], Shiraishi and Mori claim to provide a general method for constructing local Hamiltonians that do not exhibit eigenstate thermalization. We argue that the claim is based on a misunderstanding of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH). More specifically, on the assumption that ETH is valid for the entire Hamiltonian matrix instead of each symmetry sector independently. We discuss what happens if one mixes symmetry sectors in the two-dimensional transverse field Ising model.
We study the onset of eigenstate thermalization in the two-dimensional transverse field Ising model (2D-TFIM) in the square lattice. We consider two non-equivalent Hamiltonians: the ferromagnetic 2D-TFIM and the antiferromagnetic 2D-TFIM in the presence of a uniform longitudinal field. We use full exact diagonalization to examine the behavior of quantum chaos indicators and of the diagonal matrix elements of operators of interest in the eigenstates of the Hamiltonian. A finite size scaling analysis reveals that quantum chaos and eigenstate thermalization occur in those systems whenever the fie…
We study the characteristics of thermalizing and non-thermalizing operators in integrable theories as we turn on a non-integrable deformation. Specifically, we show that $σ^z$, an operator that thermalizes in the integrable transverse field Ising model, has mean matrix elements that resemble ETH, but with fluctuations around the mean that are sharply suppressed. This suppression rapidly dwindles as the Ising model becomes non-integrable by the turning on of a longitudinal field. We also construct a non-thermalizing operator in the integrable regime, which slowly approaches the ETH form as the …
Generalized thermalization is a process that occurs in integrable systems in which unitary dynamics, e.g., following a quantum quench, results in states in which observables after equilibration are described by generalized Gibbs ensembles (GGEs). Here we discuss an emergent eigenstate construction that allows one to built emergent local Hamiltonians of which one eigenstate captures the entire generalized thermalization process following a global quantum quench. Specifically, we study the emergent eigenstate that describes the quantum dynamics of hard-core bosons in one dimension (1D) for which…
We show that the known bound on the growth rate of the out-of-time-order four-point correlator in chaotic many-body quantum systems follows directly from the general structure of operator matrix elements in systems that obey the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis. This ties together two key paradigms of thermal behavior in isolated many-body quantum systems.
We ask whether the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) is valid in a strong sense: in the limit of an infinite system, {\it every} eigenstate is thermal. We examine expectation values of few-body operators in highly-excited many-body eigenstates and search for `outliers', the eigenstates that deviate the most from ETH. We use exact diagonalization of two one-dimensional nonintegrable models: a quantum Ising chain with transverse and longitudinal fields, and hard-core bosons at half-filling with nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor hopping and interaction. We show that even the most extrem…
We investigate the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) for a translationally invariant quantum spin system on the $d$-dimensional cubic lattice under the periodic boundary conditions. It is known that the ETH holds in this model for typical energy eigenstates in the sense that the standard deviation of the expectation values of a local observable in the energy eigenstates within the microcanonical energy shell vanishes in the thermodynamic limit, which is called the weak ETH. Here, it is remarked that the diagonal elements of a local observable in the energy representation shows the lar…
By means of exact diagonalization, we investigate the onset of 'eigenstate thermalization' and the crossover to ergodicity in a system of 1D fermions with increasing interaction. We show that the fluctuations in the expectation values of the momentum distribution from eigenstate to eigenstate decrease with increasing coupling strength and system size. It turns out that these fluctuations are proportional to the inverse participation ratio of eigenstates represented in the Fock basis. We demonstrate that eigenstate thermalization should set in even for vanishingly small perturbations in the the…
A class of autonomous quantum heat baths satisfying the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) criteria is proposed. We show that such systems are expected to cause thermal relaxation of much smaller quantum systems coupled to one of the baths local observables. The process of thermalization is examined through residual fluctuations of local observables of the bath around their thermal values predicted by ETH. It is shown that such fluctuations perturb the small quantum system causing its decoherence to the thermal state. As an example, we investigate theoretically and numerically thermali…
We investigate steady states of macroscopic quantum systems under dissipation not obeying the detailed balance condition. We argue that the Gibbs state at an effective temperature gives a good description of the steady state provided that the system Hamiltonian obeys the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) and the perturbation theory in the weak system-environment coupling is valid in the thermodynamic limit. We derive a criterion to guarantee the validity of the perturbation theory, which is satisfied in the thermodynamic limit for sufficiently weak dissipation when the Liouvillian is …
Generic rotationally invariant random matrix models satisfy a simple relation: the probability distribution of off-diagonal elements and the one of half the difference between any two diagonal elements coincide. In the spirit of the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH), we test the hypothesis that the same relation holds in quantum systems that are non-localized, when one considers small energy differences. The relation provides a stringent test of ETH beyond the Gaussian ensemble. We apply it to a disordered spin chain, the SYK model and a Floquet system.
Under unitary time evolution, expectation values of physically reasonable observables often evolve towards the predictions of equilibrium statistical mechanics. The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) states that this is also true already for individual energy eigenstates. Here we aim at elucidating the emergence of ETH for observables that can realistically be measured due to their high degeneracy, such as local, extensive or macroscopic observables. We bisect this problem into two parts, a condition on the relative overlaps and one on the relative phases between the eigenbases of the …
We verify that the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) holds universally for locally interacting quantum many-body systems. Introducing random-matrix ensembles with interactions, we numerically obtain a distribution of maximum fluctuations of eigenstate expectation values for different realizations of the interactions. This distribution, which cannot be obtained from the conventional random matrix theory involving nonlocal correlations, demonstrates that an overwhelming majority of pairs of local Hamiltonians and observables satisfy the ETH with exponentially small fluctuations. The erg…
The Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) explains emergence of the thermodynamic equilibrium by assuming a particular structure of observable's matrix elements in the energy eigenbasis. Schematically, it postulates that off-diagonal matrix elements are random numbers and the observables can be described by Random Matrix Theory (RMT). To what extent physical operators can be described by RMT, more precisely at which energy scale strict RMT description applies, is however not fully understood. We study this issue by introducing a novel numerical approach to probe correlations between matri…
We present a generalization of the ETH conjecture. Using this generalization we are able to derive the fact that an arbitrary eigenstate of a general many body system may be used to represent microcanonical ensemble in any many body experiment that involves only local operators and projectors onto eigenstates of the system Hamiltonian. In particular we extend the ETH to include some non-local operators. We present a derivation of this conjecture in the case of a many body model whose Hamiltonian is composed of two parts: an integrable Hamiltonian and a small but finite Gaussian perturbation.
By calculating correlation functions for the Lieb-Liniger model based on the algebraic Bethe ansatz method, we conduct a finite-size scaling analysis of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) which is considered to be a possible mechanism of thermalization in isolated quantum systems. We find that the ETH in the weak sense holds in the thermodynamic limit even for an integrable system although it does not hold in the strong sense. Based on the result of the finite-size scaling analysis, we compare the contribution of the weak ETH to thermalization with that of yet another thermalizatio…
We investigate the extent to which the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis~(ETH) is valid or violated in the non-integrable and the integrable spin-$1/2$ XXZ chain. We perform the energy-resolved analysis of the statistical properties of matrix elements $\{O_{γα}\}$ of an observable $\hat{O}$ in the energy eigenstate basis. The Hilbert space is coarse-grained into energy shells of width $Δ_E$, with which one can define a block submatrix $\tilde{O}^{(b,a)}$ consisting of elements between eigenstates in the $a$th and $b$th shells. Each block submatrix is characterized by constant values of $E_{…
The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis provides to date the most successful description of thermalization in isolated quantum systems by conjecturing statistical properties of matrix elements of typical operators in the (quasi-)energy eigenbasis. Here we study the distribution of matrix elements for a class of operators in dual-unitary quantum circuits in dependence of the frequency associated with the corresponding eigenstates. We provide an exact asymptotic expression for the spectral function, i.e., the second moment of this frequency resolved distribution. The latter is obtained from the…
