Non-equilibrium Dynamics of One-Dimensional Bose Gases

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. Introduction to One-Dimensional Bose Gases

   • Tim Langen

   Pages 1-37

3. Experimental Realization of One-Dimensional Bose Gases

   • Tim Langen

   Pages 39-65

4. Isolated Quantum Systems Out of Equilibrium

   • Tim Langen

   Pages 67-74

5. Relaxation and Prethermalization in One-Dimensional Bose Gases

   • Tim Langen

   Pages 75-95

6. Local Emergence of Thermal Correlations

   • Tim Langen

   Pages 97-109

7. Experimental Observation of a Generalized Gibbs Ensemble

   • Tim Langen

   Pages 111-121

8. Relaxation Dynamics in an Imbalanced Pair of One-Dimensional Bose Gases

   • Tim Langen

   Pages 123-133

9. Conclusion and Outlook

   • Tim Langen

   Pages 135-140

10. Back Matter

    Pages 141-146

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This work presents a series of experiments with ultracold one-dimensional Bose gases, which establish said gases as an ideal model system for exploring a wide range of non-equilibrium phenomena. With the help of newly developed tools, like full distributions functions and phase correlation functions, the book reveals the emergence of thermal-like transient states, the light-cone-like emergence of thermal correlations and the observation of generalized thermodynamic ensembles. This points to a natural emergence of classical statistical properties from the microscopic unitary quantum evolution, and lays the groundwork for a universal framework of non-equilibrium physics. The thesis investigates a central question that is highly contested in quantum physics: how and to which extent does an isolated quantum many-body system relax? This question arises in many diverse areas of physics, and many of the open problems appear at vastly different energy, time and length scales, ranging from high-energy physics and cosmology to condensed matter and quantum information. A key challenge in attempting to answer this question is the scarcity of quantum many-body systems that are both well isolated from the environment and accessible for experimental study.

• Atom chips
• Emergence of classical properties
• Generalized thermodynamic ensembles
• Matterwave interference
• One-dimensional Bose gases
• Prethermalization and thermalization
• Quantum many-body systems
• Relaxation in an isolated quantum many-body system
• Relaxation in one-dimensional bose gases
• Ultracold quantum gases

• JILA, NIST and University of Colorado, Boulder, USA

  Tim Langen

Dr. Tim Langen studied physics in Mainz, Marseille, Paris and Vienna. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at JILA, Boulder. His research interests include atomic and molecular physics, quantum optics and quantum many-body systems.

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