Determination of the nonequilibrium steady state emerging from a defect

Journal article

We consider the nonequilibrium time evolution of a translationally invariant state under a Hamiltonian with a localized defect. We discern the situations where a light cone spreads out from the defect and separates the system into regions with macroscopically different properties. We identify the light cone and propose a procedure to obtain a (quasi)stationary state describing the late time dynamics of local observables. As an explicit example, we study the time evolution generated by the Hamiltonian of the transverse-field Ising chain with a local defect that cuts the interaction between two sites (a quench of the boundary conditions alongside a global quench). We solve the dynamics exactly and show that the late time properties can be obtained with the general method proposed.

Authors: Bertini, B; Fagotti, M

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Journal: Physical Review Letters
• Volume: 117
• Issue: 13
• Article number: 130402
• Place of publication: United States
• Publication date: 2016-09-22
• Acceptance date: 2016-08-30
• DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.117.130402
• EISSN: 1079-7114
• ISSN: 0031-9007
• Pmid: 27715116
• Language: English
• Keywords: cond-mat.stat-mech; quant-ph; FFR