Advances in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics

Volume 26 (2022)

Number 6

Convergence of eigenstate expectation values with system size

Pages: 1771 – 1785

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4310/ATMP.2022.v26.n6.a5

Author

Yichen Huang (Center for Theoretical Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.)

Abstract

Understanding the asymptotic behavior of physical quantities in the thermodynamic limit is a fundamental problem in statistical mechanics. In this paper, we study how fast the eigenstate expectation values of a local operator converge to a smooth function of energy density as the system size diverges. In translation-invariant quantum lattice systems in any spatial dimension, we prove that for all but a measure zero set of local operators, the deviations of finite-size eigenstate expectation values from the aforementioned smooth function are lower bounded by $1/\mathit{O}(N)$, where $N$ is the system size. The lower bound holds regardless of the integrability or chaoticity of the model, and is saturated in systems satisfying the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis.

Published 30 June 2023