2 4 N ov 2 00 6 Fluctuations in subsystems of the zero temperature XX chain : Emergence of an effective temperature

The zero-temperature XX chain is studied with emphasis on the properties of a block of L spins inside the chain. We investigate the quantum fluctuations resulting from the entanglement of the block with the rest of the chain using analytical as well as numerical (density matrix renormalization group) methods. It is found that the rest of the chain acts as a thermal environment and an effective temperature can be introduced to describe the fluctuations. We show that the effective temperature description is robust in the sense that several independent definitions (through fluctuation dissipation theorem, comparing with a finite temperature system) yield the same functional form in the limit of large block size (L → ∞). The effective temperature can also be shown to satisfy the basic requirements on how it changes when two bodies of equal or unequal temperatures are brought into contact.