Dynamical Typicality of Quantum Expectation Values

Abstract

We show that the vast majority of all pure states featuring a common expectation value of some generic observable at a given time will yield very similar expectation values of the same observable at any later time. This is meant to apply to Schrodinger type dynamics in high dimensional Hilbert spaces. As a consequence individual dynamics of expectation values are then typically well described by the ensemble average. Our approach is based on the Hilbert space average method. We support the analytical investigations with numerics obtained by exact diagonalization of the full time-dependent Schrodinger equation for some pertinent, abstract Hamiltonian model. Furthermore, we discuss the implications for the applicability of projection operator methods with respect to initial states, as well as for irreversibility in general.