{"paper":{"title":"Energy-space quantum walks: Thermalization without state convergence","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"Populations in energy-space quantum walks relax to the Gibbs distribution while the full quantum state retains a persistent coherence-induced deviation from the thermal manifold.","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"quant-ph","authors_text":"Alana Spak dos Santos, Renato Moreira Angelo","submitted_at":"2026-05-14T19:06:11Z","abstract_excerpt":"We introduce energy-space quantum walks as a minimal framework to investigate equilibration, thermalization, and irreversibility from an effective-dynamics perspective. By mapping the configuration space of a walk onto a ladder of energy eigenlevels, we reinterpret thermalization as transport in energy space, independently of microscopic system--bath details. At the classical level, the resulting birth--death--lazy dynamics leads to equilibration of the energy distribution and, under suitable conditions, to a Gibbs stationary state. We then embed this dynamics into a unitary, collision-assiste"},"claims":{"count":4,"items":[{"kind":"strongest_claim","text":"A central result is a structural decoupling between population dynamics and coherence generation: while the populations evolve according to the classical process and relax to the Gibbs distribution, the full quantum state exhibits a persistent coherence-induced deviation from the thermal manifold.","source":"verdict.strongest_claim","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C1","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"weakest_assumption","text":"The mapping of the walk configuration space onto a discrete ladder of energy eigenlevels can be performed independently of microscopic system-bath details and yields an effective birth-death-lazy dynamics whose stationary state is exactly the Gibbs distribution.","source":"verdict.weakest_assumption","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C2","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"one_line_summary","text":"Energy-space quantum walks separate classical population equilibration to Gibbs statistics from persistent quantum coherence that prevents full state convergence to the thermal manifold.","source":"verdict.one_line_summary","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C3","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"headline","text":"Populations in energy-space quantum walks relax to the Gibbs distribution while the full quantum state retains a persistent coherence-induced deviation from the thermal manifold.","source":"verdict.pith_extraction.headline","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C4","attestation":"unclaimed"}],"snapshot_sha256":"c25861cf11b7a1eccfb97d58d4521acb9a67c4fd9b19d13c52764bc44343e48e"},"source":{"id":"2605.15339","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":"ce1070bd-6894-4047-b6f7-3cdb95aca02d","model_set":{"reader":"grok-4.3"},"created_at":"2026-05-19T15:51:44.338875Z","strongest_claim":"A central result is a structural decoupling between population dynamics and coherence generation: while the populations evolve according to the classical process and relax to the Gibbs distribution, the full quantum state exhibits a persistent coherence-induced deviation from the thermal manifold.","one_line_summary":"Energy-space quantum walks separate classical population equilibration to Gibbs statistics from persistent quantum coherence that prevents full state convergence to the thermal manifold.","pipeline_version":"pith-pipeline@v0.9.0","weakest_assumption":"The mapping of the walk configuration space onto a discrete ladder of energy eigenlevels can be performed independently of microscopic system-bath details and yields an effective birth-death-lazy dynamics whose stationary state is exactly the Gibbs distribution.","pith_extraction_headline":"Populations in energy-space quantum walks relax to the Gibbs distribution while the full quantum state retains a persistent coherence-induced deviation from the thermal manifold."},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2605.15339/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[{"name":"doi_compliance","ran_at":"2026-05-19T16:04:48.259904Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"doi_title_agreement","ran_at":"2026-05-19T16:01:18.133928Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"claim_evidence","ran_at":"2026-05-19T14:41:54.184783Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"ai_meta_artifact","ran_at":"2026-05-19T13:33:22.757584Z","status":"skipped","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0}],"snapshot_sha256":"9fd29d84a45081e5cc04732ca59293db1c77574d2fae9806d999e3a33bae29d6"},"references":{"count":41,"sample":[{"doi":"","year":2023,"title":"cold Gaussian state","work_id":"e9405a5b-3a9d-4cb9-b0fe-15ece51c2728","ref_index":1,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2011,"title":"A. 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