Propagation of quantum correlations after a quench in the mott-insulator regime of the bose-hubbard model

Abstract

We study a quantum quench in the Bose-Hubbard model where the tunneling rate J is suddenly switched from zero to a finite value in the Mott regime. In order to solve the many-body quantum dynamics far from equilibrium, we consider the reduced density matrices for a finite number of lattice sites and split them up into on-site density operators, i.e., the mean field, plus two-point and three-point correlations etc. Neglecting three-point and higher correlations, we are able to numerically simulate the time-evolution of the on-site density matrices and the two-point quantum correlations (e.g., their effective light-cone structure) for a comparably large number O(10 3 ) of lattice sites.