Relaxation of isolated quantum systems beyond chaos

Abstract

In classical statistical mechanics there is a clear correlation between relaxation to equilibrium and chaos. In contrast, for isolated quantum systems this relation is—to say the least—fuzzy. In this work we try to unveil the intricate relation between the relaxation process and the transition from integrability to chaos. We study the approach to equilibrium in two different many-body quantum systems that can be parametrically tuned from regular to chaotic. We show that a universal relation between relaxation and delocalization of the initial state in the perturbed basis can be established regardless of the chaotic nature of system.