One-particle density matrix and momentum distribution of the out-of-equilibrium 1D Tonks-Girardeau gas: Analytical results at large $N$

Abstract

In one-dimensional (1D) quantum gases, the momentum distribution (MD) of the atoms is a standard experimental observable, routinely measured in various experimental setups. The MD is sensitive to correlations, and it is notoriously hard to compute theoretically for large numbers of atoms $N$, which often prevents direct comparison with experimental data. Here we report significant progress on this problem for the 1D Tonks-Girardeau (TG) gas in the asymptotic limit of large $N$, at zero temperature and driven out of equilibrium by a quench of the confining potential. We find an exact analytical formula for the one-particle density matrix $\langle \hat{\Psi}^\dagger(x) \hat{\Psi}(x') \rangle$ of the out-of-equilibrium TG gas in the $N \rightarrow \infty$ limit, valid on distances $|x-x'| $ much larger than the interparticle distance. By comparing with time-dependent Bose-Fermi mapping numerics, we demonstrate that our analytical formula can be used to compute the out-of-equilibrium MD with great accuracy for a wide range of momenta (except in the tails of the distribution at very large momenta). For a quench from a double-well potential to a single harmonic well,which mimics a `quantum Newton cradle' setup, our method predicts the periodic formation of peculiar, multiply peaked, momentum distributions.