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Updated: Mar 10, 2026

An Analog Macroscopic Technique for Studying Molecular Hydrodynamic Processes in Dense Gases and Liquids
Published on: December 4, 2017
Emergent kinetic constraints, ergodicity breaking, and cooperative dynamics in noisy quantum systems
B Everest1, M Marcuzzi1, J P Garrahan1
1School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, United Kingdom and Centre for the Mathematics and Theoretical Physics of Quantum Non-equilibrium Systems, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
Kinetically constrained spin systems play an important role in understanding key properties of the dynamics of slowly relaxing materials, such as glasses. Recent experimental studies have revealed that manifest kinetic constraints govern the evolution of strongly interacting gases of highly excited atoms in a noisy environment. Motivated by this development we explore which types of kinetically constrained dynamics can generally emerge in quantum spin systems subject to strong noise and show how, in this framework, constraints are accompanied by conservation laws. We discuss an experimentally realizable case of a lattice gas, where the interplay between those and the geometry of the lattice leads to collective behavior and time-scale separation even at infinite temperature. This is in contrast to models of glass-forming substances which typically rely on low temperatures and the consequent suppression of thermal activation.
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