Theorie Kolloquium | June 09, 15:45

The quantum Mpemba effect


The Mpemba effect is the counterintuitive and controversial phenomenon that hot water cools faster than cold one. Here I will introduce an analogous effect recently proposed and observed in extended quantum systems in which a symmetry is explicitly broken by the initial state, but it is restored by the time evolution. To study this phenomenon we introduce a new quantity, dubbed entanglement asymmetry, which is a measure of symmetry breaking inspired by the theory of entanglement in many-body states.


Pasquale Calabrese, SISSA
Seminar Room 0.03, ETP
Contact: Simon Trebst