Equilibration properties of small quantum systems: further examples

Abstract

It has been proposed to investigate the equilibration properties of a small isolated quantum system by means of the matrix of asymptotic transition probabilities in some preferential basis. The trace T of this matrix measures the degree of equilibration of the system prepared in a typical state of the preferential basis. This quantity may vary between unity (ideal equilibration) and the dimension N of the Hilbert space (no equilibration at all). Here we analyze several examples of simple systems where the behavior of T can be investigated by analytical means. We first study the statistics of T when the Hamiltonian governing the dynamics is random and drawn from a distribution invariant under the group U(N ) or O(N ). We then investigate a quantum spin S in a tilted magnetic field making an arbitrary angle with the preferred quantization axis, as well as a tight-binding particle on a finite electrified chain. The last two cases provide examples of the interesting situation where varying a system parameter -such as the tilt angle or the electric field -through some scaling regime induces a continuous crossover from good to bad equilibration properties.