Coupling a many-body-localized system to a dissipative bath necessarily leads to delocalization. Here, we investigate the nature of the ensuing relaxation dynamics and the information it holds on the many-body-localized state. We formulate the relevant Lindblad equation in terms of the local integrals of motion of the underlying localized Hamiltonian. This allows us to map the quantum evolution deep in the localized state to tractable classical rate equations. We consider two different types of dissipation relevant to systems of ultracold atoms: dephasing due to inelastic scattering on the lattice lasers and particle loss. Our approach allows us to characterize their different effects in the limiting cases of weak and strong interactions.
Coupling a many-body-localized system to a dissipative bath necessarily leads to delocalization. Here, we investigate the nature of the ensuing relaxation dynamics and the information it holds on the many-body-localized state. We formulate the relevant Lindblad equation in terms of the local integrals of motion of the underlying localized Hamiltonian. This allows us to map the quantum evolution deep in the localized state to tractable classical rate equations. We consider two different types of dissipation relevant to systems of ultracold atoms: dephasing due to inelastic scattering on the lattice lasers and particle loss. Our approach allows us to characterize their different effects in the limiting cases of weak and strong interactions.
Abstract At long times, residual couplings to the environment become relevant even in the most isolated experiments, a crucial difficulty for the study of fundamental aspects of many-body dynamics. A particular example is many-body localization in a cold-atom setting, where incoherent photon scattering introduces both dephasing and particle loss. Whereas dephasing has been studied in detail and is known to destroy localization already on the level of non-interacting particles, the effect of particle loss is less well understood. A difficulty arises due to the ‘non-local’ nature of the loss process, complicating standard numerical tools using matrix product decomposition. Utilizing symmetries of the Lindbladian dynamics, we investigate the particle loss on both the dynamics of observables, as well as the structure of the density matrix and the individual states. We find that particle loss in the presence of interactions leads to dissipation and a strong suppression of the (operator space) entanglement entropy. Our approach allows for the study of the interplay of dephasing and loss for pure and mixed initial states to long times, which is important for future experiments using controlled coupling of the environment.
We consider what happens when a many body localized system is coupled to a heat bath. Unlike previous works, we do not restrict ourselves to the limit where the bath is large and effectively Markovian, nor to the limit where back action on the bath is negligible. We identify limits where the effect of the bath can be captured by classical noise, and limits where it cannot. We also identify limits in which the bath delocalizes the system, as well as limits in which the system localizes the bath. Using general arguments and dimensional analysis, we constrain the overall phase diagram of the coupled system and bath. Our analysis incorporates all the previously discussed regimes, and also uncovers a new intrinsically quantum regime that has not hitherto been discussed. We discuss baths that are themselves near a localization transition, or are strongly disordered but protected against localization by symmetry or topology. We also discuss situations where the system and bath have different dimensionality (the case of ‘boundary MBL’ and ‘boundary baths’). image
Strong disorder inhibits thermalization in isolated quantum systems and may lead to many-body localization (MBL). In realistic situations, however, the observation of MBL is hindered by residual couplings of the system to an environment, which acts as a bath and pushes the system to thermal equilibrium. This paper is concerned with the transient dynamics prior to thermalization and studies how the relaxation of a disordered system is altered under the influence of external driving and dissipation. We consider a scenario where a disordered quantum spin chain is placed into a strong magnetic field that polarizes the system. By suddenly removing the external field, a nonequilibrium situation is induced and the decay of magnetization probes the degree of localization. We show that by driving the system with light, one can distinguish between different dynamical regimes as the spins are more or less susceptible to the drive depending on the strength of the disorder. We provide evidence that some of these signatures remain observable at intermediate time scales even when the spin chain is subject to noise due to coupling to an environment. From a numerical point of view, we demonstrate that the open-system dynamics starting from a class of experimentally relevant mixed initial states can be efficiently simulated by combining dynamical quantum typicality with stochastic unraveling of Lindblad master equations.
It is a central problem in various fields of physics to elucidate the behavior of quantum many-body systems subjected to bulk dissipation. In this context, several microscopic derivations of the Lindblad quantum master equation for many-body systems have been proposed so far. Among them, the universal Lindblad equation derived by Nathan and Rudner is fascinating because it has the desired locality and its derivation seems to rely solely on the assumption that the bath correlation time is much shorter than the dissipation time, which is the case in the weak-coupling limit or the singular-coupling limit. However, it remains elusive whether errors from several approximations in deriving the universal Lindblad equation remain small during the time evolution in the thermodynamic limit. Here, rigorous error bounds on the time evolution of a local quantity are given, and it is shown that, under the assumption of accelerated dissipation in bulk-dissipated systems, those errors vanish in the weak-coupling limit or the singular-coupling limit after taking the thermodynamic limit.
Closed generic quantum many-body systems may fail to thermalize under certain conditions even after long times, a phenomenon called many-body localization (MBL). Numerous studies support the stability of the MBL phase in strongly disordered one-dimensional systems. However, the situation is much less clear when a small part of the system is ergodic, a scenario which also has important implications for the existence of many-body localization in higher dimensions. Here we address this question experimentally using a large-scale quantum simulator of ultracold bosons in a two-dimensional optical lattice. We prepare two-component mixtures of varying relative population and implement a disorder potential which is only experienced by one of the components. The second non-disordered ''clean'' component plays the role of a bath of adjustable size that is collisionally coupled to the ''dirty'' component. Our experiments show how the dynamics of the dirty component, which, when on its own, show strong evidence of localization, become affected by the coupling to the clean component. For a high clean population, the clean component appears to behave as an effective bath for the system which leads to its delocalization, while for a smaller clean population, the ability of the bath to destabilize the system becomes strongly reduced. Our results reveal how a finite-sized quantum system can bring another one towards thermalization, in a regime of complex interplay between disorder, tunneling and intercomponent interactions. They provide a new benchmark for effective theories aiming to capture the complex physics of MBL in the weakly localized regime.
Closed generic quantum many-body systems may fail to thermalize under certain conditions even after long times, a phenomenon called many-body localization (MBL).Numerous studies support the stability of the MBL phase in strongly disordered one-dimensional systems.However, the situation is much less clear when a small part of the system is ergodic, a scenario which also has important implications for the existence of many-body localization in higher dimensions.Here we address this question experimentally using a largescale quantum simulator of ultracold bosons in a two-dimensional optical lattice.We prepare two-component mixtures of varying relative population and implement a disorder potential which is experienced only by one of the components.The second nondisordered "clean" component plays the role of a bath of adjustable size that is collisionally coupled to the "dirty" component.Our experiments show how the dynamics of the dirty component, which, when on its own, show strong evidence of localization, become affected by the coupling to the clean component.For a high clean population, the clean component appears to behave as an effective bath for the system which leads to its delocalization, while for a smaller clean population, the ability of the bath to destabilize the system becomes strongly reduced.Our results reveal how a finite-sized quantum system can bring another one towards thermalization, in a regime of complex interplay between disorder, tunneling, and intercomponent interactions.They provide a new benchmark for effective theories aiming to capture the complex physics of MBL in the weakly localized regime.