Necessity of Eigenstate Thermalization

Necessity of Eigenstate Thermalization

Seminar author:Yoshifumi Nakata

Event date and time:01/27/2016 02:30:pm

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Understanding thermalization process is one of the central issues in the foundation of statistical mechanics. In recent years, several microscopic mechanisms of thermalization have been proposed such as canonical typicality and the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH). In this talk, I review PRL 115, 220401 (2015) by G. De Palma, A. Serafini, V. Giovannetti, and M. Cramer, which shows that the ETH is necessary and sufficient for thermalization (in some sense). I will first explain the definitions of the ETH and `thermalization’, and provide a proof sketch of the necessary part (the sufficient part is well-known and easy to prove).