Thermalization Dynamics of Two Correlated Bosonic Quantum Wires After a Split

Abstract

Coherently splitting a one-dimensional Bose gas provides an attractive, experimentally estab- lished platform to investigate many-body quantum dynamics. At short enough times, the dynamics is dominated by the dephasing of single quasi-particles, and well described by the relaxation to- wards a generalized Gibbs ensemble corresponding to the free Luttinger theory. At later times on the other hand, the approach to a thermal Gibbs ensemble is expected for a generic, interacting quantum system. Here, we go one step beyond the quadratic Luttinger theory and include the lead- ing phonon-phonon interactions. By applying kinetic theory and non-equilibrium Dyson-Schwinger equations, we analyze the full relaxation dynamics beyond dephasing and determine the asymptotic thermalization process in the two-wire system for a symmetric splitting protocol. The major ob- servables are the different phonon occupation functions and the experimentally accessible coherence factor, as well as the phase correlations between the two wires. We demonstrate that, depending on the splitting protocol, the presence of phonon collisions can have significant influence on the asymptotic evolution of these observables, which makes the corresponding thermalization dynamics experimentally accessible.