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Transport Meeting

Venue: PHYS 02.114
Time: Thursday, Friday, September 22, 2023, 2:00 pm (s.t.)
Contact: hees@itp.uni-frankfurt.de

Colored Quantum Chaos

Berndt Mueller (Duke University)

The question of how QCD matter thermalizes has importance for nuclear collisions and in various astrophysical contexts. As a first step to study this question in a model independent way at arbitrary coupling we investigate whether the Hamiltonian SU(2) gauge theory discretized on a lattice satisfies the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH). I will present the results of our recent exploratory study of three limiting cases: (a) a linear plaquette chain in a reduced Hilbert space, (b) a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice with periodic or closed boundary conditions for the same Hilbert space constraint, and (c) a chain of three plaquettes in a fully converged Hilbert space. In each of the three studied cases we check first for random matrix behavior and then analyze the diagonal as well as the off-diagonal matrix elements of selected operators between exact energy eigenstates for compatibility with the ETH. Within current numerical uncertainties most of our results agree with ETH expectations. I will discuss possible future avenues of research of the real-time dynamics of quantum gauge theories.