Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Trotzky, S.
• Chen, Y-A.
• Flesch, A.
• McCulloch, I. P.
• Schollwöck, U.
• Eisert, J.
• Bloch, I.

Titel

Probing the relaxation towards equilibrium in an isolated strongly correlated one-dimensional Bose gas

Ist Teil von

• Nature physics, 2012-04, Vol.8 (4), p.325-330

Ort / Verlag

London: Nature Publishing Group UK

Erscheinungsjahr

2012

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The problem of how complex quantum systems eventually come to rest lies at the heart of statistical mechanics. The maximum-entropy principle describes which quantum states can be expected in equilibrium, but not how closed quantum many-body systems dynamically equilibrate. Here, we report the experimental observation of the non-equilibrium dynamics of a density wave of ultracold bosonic atoms in an optical lattice in the regime of strong correlations. Using an optical superlattice, we follow its dynamics in terms of quasi-local densities, currents and coherences—all showing a fast relaxation towards equilibrium values. Numerical calculations based on matrix-product states are in an excellent quantitative agreement with the experimental data. The system fulfills the promise of being a dynamical quantum simulator, in that the controlled dynamics runs for longer times than present classical algorithms can keep track of. How quantum many-body systems relax from an initial non-equilibrium state is one of the outstanding problems in quantum statistical physics. A study combining an experimental approach for monitoring the dynamics of strongly correlated cold atoms with theoretical analysis now provides quantitative insights into the problem.