Thermalized non-equilibrated matter and high temperature superconducting state in quantum many-body systems

Abstract

A characteristic feature of thermalized non-equilibrated matter is that, in spite of energy relaxation--equilibration, a phase memory of the way the many-body system was excited remains. As an example, we analyze data on a strong forward peaking of thermal proton yield in the Bi($γ$,p) photonuclear reaction. New analysis shows that the phase relaxation in highly-excited heavy nuclei can be 8 orders of magnitude or even much longer than the energy relaxation. We argue that thermalized non-equilibrated matter resembles a high temperature superconducting state in quantum many-body systems. We briefly present results on the time-dependent correlation function of the many-particle density fluctuations for such a superconducting state. It should be of interest to experimentally search for manifestations of thermalized non-equilibrated matter in many-body mesoscopic systems and nanostructures.

12 pages, 1 eps figure. To be published in Radiation Effects and Defects in Solids