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We study the quantum evolution of one-dimensional Bose gases immediately after several variants of highenergy quenches, both theoretically and experimentally. Using the advantages conveyed by the relative simplicity of these nearly integrable many-body systems, we are able to differentiate the behaviors of two distinct but often temporally overlapping processes, hydrodynamization and local prethermalization. We show that the hydrodynamization epoch is itself characterized by two independent timescales, an oscillation period and an observable-dependent damping time. We also show how the existence of a hydrodynamization epoch depends on the exact nature of the high-energy quench. There is a universal character to our findings, which can be applied to the short-time behavior of any interacting many-body quantum system after a sudden high-energy quench.We specifically discuss its potential relevance to heavy-ion collisions. 

Quantum many-body scars are notable as nonthermal, low-entanglement states that exist at high energies. In this study, we used attractively interacting dysprosium gases to create scar states that are stable enough to be driven into a strongly nonlinear regime while retaining their character. We measured how the kinetic and total energies evolve after quenching the confining potential. Although the bare interactions are attractive, the atoms behave as if they repel each other: Their kinetic energy paradoxically decreases as the gas is compressed. The missing “phantom” energy is quantified by benchmarking our experimental results against generalized hydrodynamics calculations. We present evidence that the missing kinetic energy is carried by undetected, very high momentum atoms.