Quenches in initially coupled Luttinger liquids
Laura Foini (IPhT – CEA)
Online seminar — ZOOM Meeting ID: 969 0061 5152 — Password: ask L. Mazza and D. Petrov —
We study the quantum quench in two coupled, and generically different, Luttinger liquids, after that the coupling between the two systems is removed. To solve the problem we exploit the factorization of the initial state in terms of a massive and massless mode which emerges in the low energy limit, and we encode the non-equilibrium dynamics in a proper rescaling of the time. With this the solution of the problem can be derived in terms of the known solutions for single Luttinger liquids and, in particular, can rely on techniques exploiting conformal invariance. The emergent dynamics is characterized by a sequence of regimes and depending on the observable, the contribution from the massive or from the massless mode can be the dominant one, giving rise to exponential or power-law decay in space-time, respectively.
While the approach can be relevant in a larger set of problems, I will discuss the application to two tunnel coupled tubes in cold atomic experiments, discussing the complex thermalization properties of the system.