2011/02/28 by Arnau Riera, Christian Gogolin, Jens Eisert · 1 citation
Computer Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Computer science #Open quantum system #Physics #Quantum #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum computer #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum mechanics #Quantum simulator #Quantum system #Statistical physics #Thermalisation #cond-mat.stat-mech #math-ph #math.MP #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.108.080402
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 080402 (2012) · 4 pages plus 8 pages appendix, 3 figures
openalex publication_date 2012/02/23 · arxiv created 2012/03/12 · arxiv updated 2012/03/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
In this work, we show how Gibbs or thermal states appear dynamically in closed quantum many-body systems, building on the program of dynamical typicality. We introduce a novel perturbation theorem for physically relevant weak system-bath couplings that is applicable even in the thermodynamic limit. We identify conditions under which thermalization happens and discuss the underlying physics. Based on these results, we also present a fully general quantum algorithm for preparing Gibbs states on a quantum computer with a certified runtime and error bound. This complements quantum Metropolis algorithms, which are expected to be efficient but have no known runtime estimates and only work for local Hamiltonians.