Quantum thermalization

Ideas from theorists in fields as disparate as quantum gravity, quantum information and many-body localization are finding common ground, as we explore in this month’s Focus issue on quantum thermalization.

It is the common wisdom that time evolution of a many-body system leads to thermalization and washes away quantum correlations. But one class of system — referred to as many-body localized — defy this expectation.

Recent developments have seen concepts originally developed in quantum information theory, such as entanglement and quantum error correction, come to play a fundamental role in understanding quantum gravity.

Quantitative tools for measuring the propagation of information through quantum many-body systems, originally developed to study quantum chaos, have recently found many new applications from black holes to disordered spin systems.