Entanglement and the Emergence of Thermalization

          @misc{ scivideos_PIRSA:11100115,
            doi = {10.48660/11100115},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/11100115},
            author = {Hamma, Alioscia},
            keywords = {},
            language = {en},
            title = {Entanglement and the Emergence of Thermalization},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics},
            year = {2011},
            month = {oct},
            note = {PIRSA:11100115 see, \url{https://scivideos.org/pirsa/11100115}}
          }
          

Abstract

The canonical example of emergence is how thermodynamics emerges from microscopic laws through statistical mechanics. One of the vexing questions in the foundations of statistical mechanics is though how is it possible to justify thermalization in a closed system. In quantum statistical mechanics, entanglement can give the key to answer this question, provided that they are typically very entangled. Fortunately, most states in the Hilbert space are maximally entangled. Unfortunately, most states in the Hilbert space of a quantum many body system are not physically accessible. We show that the typical entanglement in physical ensembles of states is still very high.