High Energy Theory Group Meeting

Abstract:

Thermalization and quantum quenches Justification of applicability of statistical mechanics to many-body quantum systems is a non-trivial problem which still hasn’t been completely settled. This problem motivates the study of quantum quenches, which is a unitary process during which a quantum system is driven by a non-adiabatic change of the parameters of its Hamiltonian. Such a setup has a direct experimental realization in condensed matter systems of cold atoms in optical lattices, and is relevant for the observations of cosmological defects. Motivated by the desire to understand quantum matter driven out of equilibrium, we investigate the dynamics of quantum quenches in interacting quantum field theories, and determine how it is influenced by the aspects of the UV and the IR physics