2017/06/30 by Lorenzo Piroli, Jacopo De Nardis, Mario Collura +2 · 6 citations
Materials Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Correlation #Geometry #Mathematical physics #Mathematics #Organic and Molecular Conductors Research #Physics #Quantum chaos and dynamical systems #Quantum many-body systems #Statistical physics #cond-mat.stat-mech #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.96.115124
published as Phys. Rev. B 96, 115124 (2017) · 13 pages, 8 figures; v2: minor revision
arxiv created 2017/09/14 · openalex publication_date 2017/09/14 · arxiv updated 2017/09/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We consider the nonequilibrium protocol where two semi-infinite gapped XXZ chains, initially prepared in different equilibrium states, are suddenly joined together. At large times, a generalized hydrodynamic description applies, according to which the system can locally be represented by space- and time-dependent stationary states. The magnetization displays an unusual behavior: depending on the initial state, its profile may exhibit abrupt jumps that can not be predicted directly from the standard hydrodynamic equations and which signal nonballistic spin transport. We ascribe this phenomenon to the structure of the local conservation laws and make a prediction for the exact location of the jumps. We find that the jumps propagate at the velocities of the heaviest quasiparticles. By means of time-dependent density matrix renormalization group simulations we show that our theory yields a complete description of the long-time steady profiles of conserved charges, currents, and local correlations.