Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lev Vidmar (IJS, FMF): Quantum thermalization and ergodicity-breaking transitions

Recent decades of research contributed significantly to our understanding how an interacting quantum system, evolving in isolation from environment, approaches a thermal equilibrium. The process in which the expectation values of observables after a long time approach predictions from the thermal Gibbs ensembles is called thermalization, and the state of the system is referred to as being ergodic. The mechanism of thermalization is today understood via the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, which states that all eigenstates of a Hamiltonian are already thermal. I will also discuss counterexamples to thermalization. In particular, I will comment on our recent proposal of the regime of "fading ergodicity", which acts as a precursor of the ergodicity breaking phase transition.
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