Relaxation to gaussian and generalized Gibbs states in systems of particles with quadratic hamiltonians

We present an elementary, general, and semi-quantitative description of relaxation to gaussian and generalized Gibbs states in lattice models of fermions or bosons with quadratic hamiltonians. Our arguments apply to arbitrary initial states that satisfy a mild condition on clustering of correlations. We also show that similar arguments can be used to understand relaxation (or its absence) in systems with time-dependent quadratic hamiltonians, and provide a semi-quantitative description of relaxation in quadratic periodically driven (Floquet) systems.