Eur. Phys. J. D (2017) 71: 18
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2016-70663-9

Regular Article

Finite size effects and equilibration in Bose-Hubbard chains with central well dephasing

¹ École Nationale Supérieur d’Ingénieur de Caen, 14000 Caen, France
² School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia

^a e-mail: mko@physics.uq.edu.au

Received: 25 November 2016
Received in final form: 25 November 2016
Published online: 24 January 2017

Abstract

We investigate Bose-Hubbard chains in a central depleted well configuration, with dephasing in the middle well. We look at equilibration of populations, pseudo-entropy, and entanglement measures. Using stochastic integration in the truncated Wigner representation, we find that the initial quantum states of the occupied wells have an influence on the subsequent dynamics, and that with more than three wells, the chains do not reach a full equilibrium, with edge effects becoming important, and the time to reach the steady state becoming longer. The evolutions with and without phase diffusion are qualitatively different. We find no convincing evidence of entanglement in the final states with phase diffusion. Although at least one accepted measure indicates the presence of mode entanglement, we are easily able to show that it can give ambiguous predictions.