Perpetual motion of a mobile impurity in a one-dimensional quantum gas

Abstract

Consider an impurity particle injected in a degenerate one-dimensional gas of noninteracting fermions (or, equivalently, Tonks-Girardeau bosons) with some initial momentum $p_0$. We examine the infinite-time value of the momentum of the impurity, $p_\infty$, as a function of $p_0$. A lower bound on $|p_\infty(p_0)|$ is derived under fairly general conditions. The derivation, based on the existence of the lower edge of the spectrum of the host gas, does not resort to any approximations. The existence of such bound implies the perpetual motion of an impurity in a one-dimensional gas of noninteracting fermions or Tonks-Girardeau bosons at zero temperature. The bound has an especially simple and useful form when the interaction between the impurity and host particles is everywhere repulsive.