Breakdown of Fermi's Golden Rule in 1d systems at non-zero temperature

Abstract

In interacting quantum systems, the single-particle Green's function is expected to decay in time due to the interaction induced decoherence of quasiparticles. In the limit of weak interaction strengths ($\Delta$), a naive application of Fermi's Golden Rule (FGR) predicts an $\mathcal{O}(\Delta^{2})$ quasiparticle decay rate. However, for 1d fermions on the lattice at $T>0$, this calculation gives a divergent result and the scaling of the quasiparticle lifetime with interaction strength remains an open question. In this work we propose a solution to this question: combining numerical simulations using the recently introduced dissipation-assisted operator evolution (DAOE) method, with non-perturbative diagrammatic re-summations, we predict a logarithmic enhancement of the quasiparticle decay rate $\tau^{-1} \sim \Delta^{2} \log \Delta^{-2}$. We argue that this effect is present in a wide variety of well-known weakly interacting quantum fermionic and bosonic systems, and even in some classical systems, provided the non-interacting limit has quasiparticles with a generic dispersion.