Observation of Quantum Equilibration in Dilute Bose Gases

We investigate experimentally the dynamical relaxation of a non-integrable quantum many-body system to its equilibrium state. A Bose-Einstein condensate is loaded into the first excited band of an optical lattice and let to evolve up to a few hundreds of milliseconds. Signs of quantum equilibration are observed. There is a period of time, roughly 40 ms long, during which both the aspect ratio of the cloud and its momentum distribution remain constant. In particular, the momentum distribution has a flat top and is not a Gaussian thermal distribution. After this period, the cloud becomes classical as its momentum distribution becomes Gaussian.