Exact and truncated dynamics in nonequilibrium field theory

Nonperturbative dynamics of quantum fields out of equilibrium is often described by the time evolution of a hierarchy of correlation functions, using approximation methods such as Hartree, large N-f, and nPI-effective action techniques. These truncation schemes can be implemented equally well in a classical statistical system, where results can be tested by comparison with the complete nonlinear evolution obtained by numerical methods. For a (1 + 1)-dimensional scalar field we find that the early-time behavior is reproduced qualitatively by the Hartree dynamics. The inclusion of direct scattering improves this to the quantitative level. We show that the emergence of nonthermal temperature profiles at intermediate times can be understood in terms of the fixed points of the evolution equations in the Hartree approximation. The form of the profile depends explicitly on the initial ensemble. While the truncated evolution equations do not seem to be able to get away from the fixed point, the full nonlinear evolution shows thermalization with a (surprisingly) slow relaxation.