A class of autonomous quantum heat baths satisfying the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) criteria is proposed. We show that such systems are expected to cause thermal relaxation of much smaller quantum systems coupled to one of the baths local observables. The process of thermalization is examined through residual fluctuations of local observables of the bath around their thermal values predicted by ETH. It is shown that such fluctuations perturb the small quantum system causing its decoherence to the thermal state. As an example, we investigate theoretically and numerically thermalization of a qubit coupled to a realistic ETH quantum heat bath.

• Received 5 April 2015
• Revised 14 July 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.92.022104