The ICTP Webinar Colloquium by Prof. Maciej Lewenstein, on "To Thermalize or not to Thermalize, that is the Question", on Wednesday 23 February at 16:00 hrs CET

Advance registration is required at:

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_WifhpYvYDR5i67rQsWkVsAw

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Biosketch: Maciej Lewenstein graduated as MSc at Warsaw University in 1978 and PhD at Universität Essen in 1983. He was research fellow in Essen, at Harvard, Commisariat a l'Énergie Atomique in Saclay and at Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics at Boulder. He was on faculty of Centre for Theoretical Physic in Warsaw (1986-1994), CEA in Saclay (1995-1998), of the Leibniz University Hannover (1998-2005). In 2005 he moved to Catalonia as ICREA Research Professor at ICFO in Castelldefels. His interests include quantum optics, quantum physics, quantum information, atto-second science, and statistical physics. He is an acclaimed jazz writer and critic, author of “Polish Jazz Recordings and Beyond”. He published over 600 papers, cited in WoS over 42000 times with H-index=101. Recipient of 3 ERC AdGs.

Abstract: Quantum closed systems, when perturbed or quenched, tend to “thermalize” in an ergodic way: the reduced density matrix of a block of the system in well approximated by the Gibbs-Boltzmann canonical ensemble, at least for averages of local observables and their not too high moments. There are several exceptions from this situation: i) Systems with multiple constants of motion are described by generalized Gibbs-Boltzmann ensembles; ii) Many-body localization (MBL) occurs in certain disordered systems; iii) MBL may occur also in non-disordered systems; iv) Local conservation laws, like the Gauss law, may prevent thermalization, for instance in Lattice Gauge Theory (LGT) models; v) Systems may exhibit quantum many-body scars, i.e. low entropy states that cause “weak” ergodicity breaking; vi) The latter occur frequently in confined LGT, but also deconfined ones.

The talk will be followed by a question/answer session.

For info, please check the following link: http://indico.ictp.it/event/9849/