An investigation of equilibration in small quantum systems: the example of a particle in a 1D random potential

DOI10.1088/1751-8113/49/11/115303zbMATH Open1343.81076arXiv1510.06163OpenAlexW2256910962MaRDI QIDQ2994718FDOQ2994718

Authors: J. M. Luck 

Publication date: 3 August 2016

Published in: Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We investigate the equilibration of a small isolated quantum system by means of its matrix of asymptotic transition probabilities in a preferential basis. The trace of this matrix is shown to measure the degree of equilibration of the system launched from a typical state, from the standpoint of the chosen basis. This approach is substantiated by an in-depth study of the example of a tight-binding particle in one dimension. In the regime of free ballistic propagation, the above trace saturates to a finite limit, testifying good equilibration. In the presence of a random potential, the trace grows linearly with the system size, testifying poor equilibration in the insulating regime induced by Anderson localization. In the weak-disorder situation of most interest, a universal finite-size scaling law describes the crossover between the ballistic and localized regimes. The associated crossover exponent 2/3 is dictated by the anomalous band-edge scaling characterizing the most localized energy eigenstates.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1510.06163

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zbMATH Keywords

localizationquantum mechanicsquantum walksequilibration

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Random walks, random surfaces, lattice animals, etc. in equilibrium statistical mechanics (82B41) PDEs with randomness, stochastic partial differential equations (35R60) Closed and approximate solutions to the Schrödinger, Dirac, Klein-Gordon and other equations of quantum mechanics (81Q05) Disordered systems (random Ising models, random Schrödinger operators, etc.) in equilibrium statistical mechanics (82B44)

Cited In (6)

• Statistical diagonalization of a random biased Hamiltonian: the case of the eigenvectors
• Equilibration properties of small quantum systems: further examples
• Many-body-localization transition: strong multifractality spectrum for matrix elements of local operators
• An investigation of PT -symmetry breaking in tight-binding chains
• Krylov localization and suppression of complexity
• Quantum Fisher information matrix and multiparameter estimation

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