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Thermalization of a Trapped One-Dimensional Bose Gas via Diffusion
Alvise Bastianello1, Andrea De Luca2, Benjamin Doyon3
1Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098 XH Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Physical Review Letters
|January 7, 2021
Summary
A decade-long mystery is solved: interacting bosons in a 1D gas with external potentials eventually thermalize. This study explains slow thermalization rates via generalized hydrodynamics, revealing prethermal plateaus and polynomial corrections.
Area of Science:
- Quantum physics
- Statistical mechanics
- Condensed matter theory
Background:
- The long-term behavior of one-dimensional (1D) interacting Bose gases in external potentials was previously unknown.
- Integrable systems in physics often exhibit non-trivial dynamics when perturbations are introduced.
Purpose of the Study:
- To elucidate the thermalization dynamics of a 1D Bose gas with broken integrability.
- To provide a theoretical framework explaining the observed slow thermalization rates.
Main Methods:
- Development and application of generalized hydrodynamics incorporating diffusion and force terms.
- Comparison of theoretical predictions with numerical simulations.
Main Results:
- Broken integrability in 1D Bose gases leads to diffusive quasiparticle rearrangements and eventual thermalization.
- Generalized hydrodynamics accurately describes the thermalizing dynamics, including diffusion constants.
- Slow thermalization is attributed to a continuity of hydrodynamic modes with vanishingly small diffusion coefficients.
Conclusions:
- The study resolves the decade-long mystery of 1D interacting Bose gas thermalization under external potentials.
- The findings explain slow relaxation rates through prethermal plateaus and long polynomial finite-time corrections in dynamics.
- Generalized hydrodynamics provides a powerful tool for understanding thermalization in quantum many-body systems.
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