Thermalization at Low Temperatures via Weakly-Damped Multi-Site Baths

Abstract: We study the thermalization properties of one-dimensional open quantum systems coupled to baths at their boundary. The baths are driven to their thermal states via Lindblad operators, while the system undergoes Hamiltonian dynamics. We specifically consider multi-site baths and investigate the extent to which the late-time steady state resembles a Gibbs state at some controllable temperature set by the baths. We study three models: a non-interacting fermion model accessible via free-fermion technology, and two interacting models, the XZ model and the chiral clock model, which are accessible via tensor network methods. We show that, by tuning towards the weak coupling and slow relaxation limits, one can engineer low temperatures in the bulk of the system provided the bath size is big enough. We use this capability to study energy transport in the XZ model at lower temperatures than previously reported. Our work paves the way for future studies of interacting open quantum systems at low temperatures.