Atypicality of Most Few-Body Observables

Ryusuke Hamazaki and Masahito Ueda
Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 080603 – Published 23 February 2018
PDFHTMLExport Citation

Abstract

The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), which dictates that all diagonal matrix elements within a small energy shell be almost equal, is a major candidate to explain thermalization in isolated quantum systems. According to the typicality argument, the maximum variations of such matrix elements should decrease exponentially with increasing the size of the system, which implies the ETH. We show, however, that the typicality argument does not apply to most few-body observables for few-body Hamiltonians when the width of the energy shell decreases at most polynomially with increasing the size of the system.

  • Figure
  • Figure
  • Received 21 August 2017
  • Revised 3 December 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.080603

© 2018 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Statistical Physics & Thermodynamics

Authors & Affiliations

Ryusuke Hamazaki

  • Department of Physics, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan

Masahito Ueda

  • Department of Physics, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan and RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS), Wako 351-0198, Japan

Article Text (Subscription Required)

Click to Expand

Supplemental Material (Subscription Required)

Click to Expand

References (Subscription Required)

Click to Expand
Issue

Vol. 120, Iss. 8 — 23 February 2018

Reuse & Permissions
Access Options
Author publication services for translation and copyediting assistance advertisement

Authorization Required


×
×

Images

×

Sign up to receive regular email alerts from Physical Review Letters

Log In

Cancel
×

Search


Article Lookup

Paste a citation or DOI

Enter a citation
×