2024/03/08 by Elena Cáceres, Stefan Eccles, Cáceres, Elena +5 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2403.05197
openalex publication_date 2024/03/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) has played a key role in recent advances in the high energy and condensed matter communities. It explains how an isolated quantum system in a far-from-equilibrium initial state can evolve to a state that is indistinguishable from thermal equilibrium, with observables relaxing to almost time-independent results that can be described using traditional statistical mechanics ensembles. In this work we probe the limits of ETH, pushing it outside its prototypical applications in several directions. We design a qutrit lattice system with conserved quasilocal charge, in which we verify a form of generalized eigenstate thermalization. We also observe signatures of thermalization in states well outside microcanonical windows of both charge and energy, which we dub `generic ETH.'