Divergence of thermalization rates driven by the competition between finite temperature and quantum coherence

Abstract

The thermalization of an isolated quantum system is described by quantum mechanics and thermodynamics, while these two subjects are still not fully consistent with each other. This leaves a less-explored region where both quantum and thermal effects cannot be neglected, and the ultracold atom platform provides a suitable and versatile testbed to experimentally investigate these complex phenomena. Here we perform experiments based on ultracold atoms in optical lattices and observe a divergence of thermalization rates of quantum matters when the temperature approaches zero. By ramping an external parameter in the Hamiltonian, we observe the time delay between the internal relaxation and the external ramping. This provides us with a direct comparison of the thermalization rates of different quantum phases. We find that the quantum coherence and bosonic stimulation of superfluid induces the divergence while the finite temperature and the many-body interactions are suppressing the divergence. The quantum coherence and the thermal effects are competing with each other in this isolated thermal quantum system, which leads to the transition of thermalization rate from divergence to convergence.