Stationary behaviour of observables after a quantum quench in the spin-1/2 Heisenberg XXZ chain

Maurizio Fagotti, Fabian H. L. Essler

Published 2013-05-02, updated 2013-07-30Version 3

We consider a quantum quench in the spin-1/2 Heisenberg XXZ chain. At late times after the quench it is believed that the expectation values of local operators approach time-independent values, that are described by a generalized Gibbs ensemble. Employing a quantum transfer matrix approach we show how to determine short-range correlation functions in such generalized Gibbs ensembles for a class of initial states.