A thermal equilibrium state of a quantum many-body system can be represented by a typical pure state, which we call a thermal pure quantum (TPQ) state. We construct the canonical TPQ state, which corresponds to the canonical ensemble of the conventional statistical mechanics. It is related to the microcanonical TPQ state, which corresponds to the microcanonical ensemble, by simple analytic transformations. Both TPQ states give identical thermodynamic results, if both ensembles do, in the thermodynamic limit. The TPQ states corresponding to other ensembles can also be constructed. We have thus established the TPQ formulation of statistical mechanics, according to which all quantities of statistical-mechanical interest are obtained from a single realization of any TPQ state. We also show that it has great advantages in practical applications. As an illustration, we study the spin-1/2 kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet.

An equilibrium state can be represented by a pure quantum state, which we call a thermal pure quantum (TPQ) state. We propose a new TPQ state and a simple method of obtaining it. A single realization of the TPQ state suffices for calculating all statistical-mechanical properties, including correlation functions and genuine thermodynamic variables, of a quantum system at finite temperature.

A pure quantum state can fully describe thermal equilibrium as long as one focuses on local observables. The thermodynamic entropy can also be recovered as the entanglement entropy of small subsystems. When the size of the subsystem increases, however, quantum correlations break the correspondence and mandate a correction to this simple volume law. The elucidation of the size dependence of the entanglement entropy is thus essentially important in linking quantum physics with thermodynamics. Here we derive an analytic formula of the entanglement entropy for a class of pure states called cTPQ states representing equilibrium. We numerically find that our formula applies universally to any sufficiently scrambled pure state representing thermal equilibrium, i.e., energy eigenstates of non-integrable models and states after quantum quenches. Our formula is exploited as diagnostics for chaotic systems; it can distinguish integrable models from non-integrable models and many-body localization phases from chaotic phases.