Taking snapshots of a quantum thermalization process: Emergent classicality in quantum jump trajectories

Abstract

We investigate theoretically the emergence of classical statistical physics in a finite quantum system that is either totally isolated or otherwise subjected to a quantum measurement process. We show via a random matrix theory approach to nonintegrable quantum systems that the set of outcomes of the measurement of a macroscopic observable evolve in time like stochastic variables, whose variance satisfies the celebrated Einstein relation for Brownian diffusion. Our results show how to extend the framework of eigenstate thermalization to the prediction of properties of quantum measurements on an otherwise closed quantum system. We show numerically the validity of the random matrix approach in quantum chain models.