Quantum thermalization mechanism and the emergence of symmetry-breaking phases

Abstract

We propose a generalization of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis accounting for the emergence of symmetry-breaking phases. It consists of two conditions that any system with a degenerate spectrum must fulfill in order to thermalize. The failure of each of them generates a different non-thermalizing scenario. One is due to the absence of chaos and may indicate that extra constants of motion are required to describe equilibrium states. The other one implies the existence of initial conditions evolving towards symmetry-breaking equilibrium states. If it spreads across an entire spectral region, then this region gives rise to a symmetry-breaking phase. We explore the applicability of this formalism by means of numerical experiments on a three-site Bose-Hubbard model with two non-commuting discrete symmetries.