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arXiv:1403.0693 · Physical Review Letters

Interferometric Probes of Many-Body Localization

Maksym Serbyn, Michael Knap, Sarang Gopalakrishnan, Zlatko Papić, Norman Y. Yao, Chris R. Laumann, Dmitry A. Abanin, Mikhail D. Lukin, Eugene Demler

Published Oct 3, 2014• 170 citations
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Abstract

We propose a method for detecting many-body localization (MBL) in disordered spin systems. The method involves pulsed coherent spin manipulations that probe the dephasing of a given spin due to its entanglement with a set of distant spins. It allows one to distinguish the MBL phase from a noninteracting localized phase and a delocalized phase. In particular, we show that for a properly chosen pulse sequence the MBL phase exhibits a characteristic power-law decay reflecting its slow growth of entanglement. We find that this power-law decay is robust with respect to thermal and disorder averaging, provide numerical simulations supporting our results, and discuss possible experimental realizations in solid-state and cold-atom systems.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.113.147204

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We propose a method for detecting many-body localization (MBL) in disordered spin systems. The method involves pulsed coherent spin manipulations that probe the dephasing of a given spin due to its entanglement with a set of distant spins. It allows one to distinguish the MBL phase from a noninteracting localized phase and a delocalized phase. In particular, we show that for a properly chosen pulse sequence the MBL phase exhibits a characteristic power-law decay reflecting its slow growth of entanglement. We find that this power-law decay is robust with respect to thermal and disorder averaging, provide numerical simulations supporting our results, and discuss possible experimental realizations in solid-state and cold-atom systems.
We demonstrate that the dynamics of quantum coherence serves as an effective probe for identifying dephasing, which is a distinctive signature of many-body localization (MBL). Quantum coherence can be utilized to measure both the local coherence of specific subsystems and the total coherence of the whole system in a consistent manner. Our results reveal that the local coherence of small subsystems decays over time following a power law in the MBL phase, while it reaches a stable value within the same time window in the Anderson-localized (AL) phase. In contrast, the total coherence of the whole system exhibits logarithmic growth during the MBL phase and reaches a stable value in the AL phase. Notably, this dynamic characteristic of quantum coherence remains robust even with weak interactions and displays unbounded behavior in infinite systems. Our results provide insights into understanding many-body dephasing phenomena in MBL systems and reveal a feasible method for identifying and characterizing MBL phases in experiments.
We are able to detect clear signatures of dephasing---a distinct trait of many-body localization (MBL)---via the dynamics of two-site entanglement, quantified through the concurrence. Using the protocol implemented by M. Schreiber et al. [Science 349, 842 (2015)], we show that in the MBL phase the average two-site entanglement decays in time as a power law, while in the Anderson localized phase it tends to a plateau. The power-law exponent is not universal and displays a clear dependence on the interaction strength. This behavior is also qualitatively different from the ergodic phase, where the two-site entanglement decays exponentially. All the results are obtained by means of time-dependent density matrix renormalization-group simulations and further corroborated by analytical calculations on an effective model. Two-site entanglement has been measured in cold atoms: our analysis paves the way for the first direct experimental test of many-body dephasing in the MBL phase.
We propose to apply spin noise spectroscopy (SNS) to detect many-body localization (MBL) in disordered spin systems. The SNS methods are relatively noninvasive techniques to probe spontaneous spin fluctuations. Here, we show that the spin noise signals obtained by cross-correlation SNS with two probe beams can be used to separate the MBL phase from a noninteracting Anderson localized phase and a delocalized (diffusive) phase in the studied models for which we numerically calculate real-time spin noise signals and their power spectra. For an archetypical case of the disordered XXZ spin chain, we also develop a simple phenomenological model.
We analyze a disordered central spin model, where a central spin interacts equally with each spin in a periodic one-dimensional (1D) random-field Heisenberg chain. If the Heisenberg chain is initially in the many-body localized (MBL) phase, we find that the coupling to the central spin suffices to delocalize the chain for a substantial range of coupling strengths. We calculate the phase diagram of the model and identify the phase boundary between the MBL and ergodic phase. Within the localized phase, the central spin significantly enhances the rate of the logarithmic entanglement growth and its saturation value. We attribute the increase in entanglement entropy to a nonextensive enhancement of magnetization fluctuations induced by the central spin. Finally, we demonstrate that correlation functions of the central spin can be utilized to distinguish between MBL and ergodic phases of the 1D chain. Hence, we propose the use of a central spin as a possible experimental probe to identify the MBL phase.
We use an external spin as a dynamical probe of many-body localization. The probe spin is coupled to an interacting and disordered environment described by a Heisenberg spin chain in a random field. The spin-chain environment can be tuned between a thermalizing delocalized phase and nonthermalizing localized phase, both in its ground and high-energy states. We study the decoherence of the probe spin when it couples to the environment prepared in three states: the ground state, the infinite temperature state, and a high-energy N\'eel state. In the nonthermalizing many-body localized regime, the coherence shows scaling behavior in the disorder strength. The long-time dynamics of the probe spin shows a logarithmic dephasing in analogy with the logarithmic growth of entanglement entropy for a bipartition of a many-body localized system. In summary, we show that decoherence of the probe spin provides clear signatures of many-body localization.
Characterizing out-of-equilibrium many-body dynamics is a complex but crucial task for quantum applications and understanding fundamental phenomena. A central question is the role of localization in quenching thermalization in many-body systems and whether such localization survives in the presence of interactions. Probing this question in real systems necessitates the development of an experimentally measurable metric that can distinguish between different types of localization. While it is known that the localized phase of interacting systems [many-body localization (MBL)] exhibits a long-time logarithmic growth in entanglement entropy that distinguishes it from the noninteracting case of Anderson localization (AL), entanglement entropy is difficult to measure experimentally. Here, we present a novel correlation metric, capable of distinguishing MBL from AL in high-temperature spin systems. We demonstrate the use of this metric to detect localization in a natural solid-state spin system using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). We engineer the natural Hamiltonian to controllably introduce disorder and interactions, and observe the emergence of localization. In particular, while our correlation metric saturates for AL, it slowly keeps increasing for MBL, demonstrating analogous features to entanglement entropy, as we show in simulations. Our results show that our NMR techniques, akin to measuring out-of-time correlations, are well suited for studying localization in spin systems.