We study the unitary relaxation dynamics of disordered spin chains following a sudden quench of the Hamiltonian. We give analytical arguments, corroborated by specific numerical examples, to show that the existence of a stationary state depends crucially on the spectral and localization properties of the final Hamiltonian, and not on the initial state. We test these ideas on integrable one-dimensional models of the Ising or $XY$ class, but argue more generally on their validity for more complex (nonintegrable) models.

• Received 28 June 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.247205