Correlations after Quantum Quenches in the XXZ Spin Chain: Failure of the Generalized Gibbs Ensemble

Pozsgai, Balázs and Mestyán, Márton and Werner, Miklós Antal and Kormos, Márton and Zaránd, Gergely Attila and Takács, Gábor (2014) Correlations after Quantum Quenches in the XXZ Spin Chain: Failure of the Generalized Gibbs Ensemble. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS, 113 (11). ISSN 0031-9007

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Abstract

We study the nonequilibrium time evolution of the spin-1/2 anisotropic Heisenberg (XXZ) spin chain, with a choice of dimer product and N´eel states as initial states. We investigate numerically various short-ranged spin correlators in the long-time limit and find that they deviate significantly from predictions based on the generalized Gibbs ensemble (GGE) hypotheses. By computing the asymptotic spin correlators within the recently proposed quench-action formalism [Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 257203 (2013)], however, we find excellent agreement with the numerical data. We, therefore, conclude that the GGE cannot give a complete description even of local observables, while the quench-action formalism correctly captures the steady state in this case.

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