Thursday, December 20, 2012

1212.4645 (David Adu Smith et al.)

Prethermalization Revealed by the Relaxation Dynamics of Full
Distribution Functions
   [PDF]

David Adu Smith, Michael Gring, Tim Langen, Maximilian Kuhnert, Bernhard Rauer, Remi Geiger, Takuya Kitagawa, Igor Mazets, Eugene Demler, Jörg Schmiedmayer
We detail the experimental observation of the non-equilibrium many-body phenomenon prethermalization. We study the dynamics of a rapidly and coherently split one-dimensional Bose gas. An analysis based on the use of full quantum mechanical probability distributions of matter wave interference contrast reveals that the system evolves towards a quasi-steady state. This state, which can be characterized by an effective temperature, is not the final thermal equilibrium state. We compare the evolution of the system to an integrable Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid model and show that the system dephases to a prethermalized state rather than undergoing thermalization towards a final thermal equilibrium state.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.4645

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