| Does the presence of a Mott gap inhibit the relaxation of an isolated many-body system which is suddenly forced out of thermal equilibrium? Recently it has become possible to investigate this question in experiments with ultracold atomic gases. We show that the answer is no for two fermionic Hubbard-type systems, the Falicov-Kimball model in dynamical mean-field theory and a Hubbard chain with long-range hopping. Starting from a metallic or a Mott-insulating initial state, we obtain the exact real-time dynamics after a sudden change of the interaction parameter. In all cases we observe relaxation to a new steady state, showing that the presence of the Mott gap does not inhibit relaxation. |
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