Equilibration via Gaussification in Fermionic Lattice Systems

Abstract

In this Letter, we present a result on the nonequilibrium dynamics causing equilibration and Gaussification of quadratic noninteracting fermionic Hamiltonians. Specifically, based on two basic assumptions—clustering of correlations in the initial state and the Hamiltonian exhibiting delocalizing transport—we prove that non-Gaussian initial states become locally indistinguishable from fermionic Gaussian states after a short and well controlled time. This relaxation dynamics is governed by a power-law independent of the system size. Our argument is general enough to allow for pure and mixed initial states, including thermal and ground states of interacting Hamiltonians on large classes of lattices as well as certain spin systems. The argument gives rise to rigorously proven instances of a convergence to a generalized Gibbs ensemble. Our results allow us to develop an intuition of equilibration that is expected to be more generally valid and relates to current experiments of cold atoms in optical lattices.