1994/10/14 by Mark Srednicki, Srednicki, Mark · 1 citation
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Chaotic Dynamics (nlin.CD) #Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis #Condensed Matter (cond-mat) #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/9410046
openalex publication_date 1994/10/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
If a many-body quantum system approaches thermal equilibrium from a generic initial state, then the expectation value ⟨ψ(t)|Ai|ψ(t)⟩, where |ψ(t)⟩ is the system's state vector and Ai is an experimentally accessible observable, should approach a constant value which is independent of the initial state, and equal to a thermal average of Ai at an appropriate temperature. We show that this is the case for all simple observables whenever the system is classically chaotic.