Publications by authors named "Vincenzo Alba"

We provide a new hydrodynamic framework to describe out-of-equilibrium integrable systems with space-time inhomogeneous interactions. Our result builds up on the recently introduced generalized hydrodynamics (GHD). The method allows us to analytically describe the dynamics during generic space-time-dependent smooth modulations of the interactions.

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Nonequilibrium time evolution in isolated many-body quantum systems generally results in thermalization. However, the relaxation process can be very slow, and quasistationary nonthermal plateaux are often observed at intermediate times. The paradigmatic example is a quantum quench in an integrable model with weak integrability breaking; for a long time, the state cannot escape the constraints imposed by the approximate integrability.

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In recent years entanglement measures, such as the von Neumann and the Rényi entropies, provided a unique opportunity to access elusive features of quantum many-body systems. However, extracting entanglement properties analytically, experimentally, or in numerical simulations can be a formidable task. Here, by combining the replica trick and the Jarzynski equality we devise an alternative effective out-of-equilibrium protocol for measuring the equilibrium Rényi entropies.

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Entanglement and entropy are key concepts standing at the foundations of quantum and statistical mechanics. Recently, the study of quantum quenches revealed that these concepts are intricately intertwined. Although the unitary time evolution ensuing from a pure state maintains the system at zero entropy, local properties at long times are captured by a statistical ensemble with nonzero thermodynamic entropy, which is the entanglement accumulated during the dynamics.

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We study the entanglement spectrum (ES) of the Bose-Hubbard model on the two-dimensional square lattice at unit filling, both in the Mott insulating and in the superfluid phase. In the Mott phase, we demonstrate that the ES is dominated by the physics at the boundary between the two subsystems. On top of the boundary-local (perturbative) structure, the ES exhibits substructures arising from one-dimensional dispersions along the boundary.

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The entanglement between two parts of a many-body system can be characterized in detail by the entanglement spectrum. Focusing on gapped phases of several one-dimensional systems, we show how this spectrum is dominated by contributions from the boundary between the parts. This contradicts the view of an "entanglement Hamiltonian" as a bulk entity.

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