Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:1705.00627 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Many-body self-localization in a translation-invariant Hamiltonian

Rubem Mondaini, Zi Cai

Published Jul 31, 2017• 33 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the statistical and dynamical aspects of a translation-invariant Hamiltonian, without quench disorder, as an example of the manifestation of the phenomenon of many-body localization. This is characterized by the breakdown of thermalization and by information preservation of initial preparations at long times. To realize this, we use quasiperiodic long-range interactions, which are now achievable in high-finesse cavity experiments, to find evidence suggestive of a divergent time-scale in which charge inhomogeneities in the initial state survive asymptotically. This is reminiscent of a glassy behavior, which appears in the ground state of this system, being also present at infinite temperatures.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.96.035153

Related papers

Instability of localization in translation-invariant systems

Yichen Huang, Aram W. Harrow

The phenomenon of localization is usually accompanied with the presence of quenched disorder. To what extent disorder is necessary for localization is a well-known open problem. In this paper, we prove the instability of localization in translation-invariant systems. For any translation-invariant local Hamiltonian exhibiting either Anderson or many-body localization, an arbitrarily small translation-invariant random local perturbation almost surely leads to the following manifestations of delocalization: (i) Transport: For any (inhomogeneous) initial state, the spatial distribution of energy or any other local conserved quantity becomes uniform at late times. (ii) Scrambling: The out-of-time-ordered correlator of any traceless local operators decays to zero at late times. (iii) Thermalization: Random product states locally thermalize to the infinite temperature state with overwhelming probability.

arXiv:1907.13392•Jul 31, 2019•9 citations

Glassy quantum dynamics in translation invariant fracton models

Abhinav Prem, Jeongwan Haah, Rahul Nandkishore

We investigate relaxation in the recently discovered ``fracton'' models and discover that these models naturally host glassy quantum dynamics in the absence of quenched disorder. We begin with a discussion of ``type I'' fracton models, in the taxonomy of Vijay, Haah, and Fu. We demonstrate that in these systems, the mobility of charges is suppressed exponentially in the inverse temperature. We further demonstrate that when a zero-temperature type I fracton model is placed in contact with a finite-temperature heat bath, the approach to equilibrium is a logarithmic function of time over an exponentially wide window of time scales. Generalizing to the more complex ``type II'' fracton models, we find that the charges exhibit subdiffusion up to a relaxation time that diverges at low temperatures as a superexponential function of inverse temperature. This behavior is reminiscent of ``nearly localized'' disordered systems, but occurs with a translation invariant three-dimensional Hamiltonian. We also conjecture that fracton models with conserved charge may support a phase which is a thermal metal but a charge insulator.

arXiv:1702.02952•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Apr 19, 2017•197 citations

Quasi-Many-Body Localization in Translation-Invariant Systems

Norman Y. Yao, Chris R. Laumann, J. I. Cirac +2 more

We examine localization phenomena associated with generic, high entropy, states of a translation-invariant, one-dimensional spin ladder. At early times, we find slow growth of entanglement entropy consistent with the known phenomenology of many-body localization in disordered, interacting systems. At intermediate times, however, anomalous diffusion sets in, leading to full spin polarization decay on an exponentially activated time scale. We identify a single length scale which parametrically controls both the spin transport times and the apparent divergence of the susceptibility to spin glass ordering. Ultimately, at the latest times, the exponentially slow anomalous diffusion gives way to diffusive thermal behavior. We dub the intermediate dynamical behavior, which persists over many orders of magnitude in time, quasi-many-body localization.

arXiv:1410.7407•Physical Review Letters•Dec 7, 2016•155 citations

Localization and Glassy Dynamics Of Many-Body Quantum Systems

Giuseppe Carleo, Federico Becca, Marco Schirò +1 more

When classical systems fail to explore their entire configurational space, intriguing macroscopic phenomena like aging and glass formation may emerge. Also closed quanto-mechanical systems may stop wandering freely around the whole Hilbert space, even if they are initially prepared into a macroscopically large combination of eigenstates. Here, we report numerical evidences that the dynamics of strongly interacting lattice bosons driven sufficiently far from equilibrium can be trapped into extremely long-lived inhomogeneous metastable states. The slowing down of incoherent density excitations above a threshold energy, much reminiscent of a dynamical arrest on the verge of a glass transition, is identified as the key feature of this phenomenon. We argue that the resulting long-lived inhomogeneities are responsible for the lack of thermalization observed in large systems. Such a rich phenomenology could be experimentally uncovered upon probing the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of conveniently prepared quantum states of trapped cold atoms which we hereby suggest.

arXiv:1109.2516•Scientific Reports•Feb 6, 2012•209 citations

Many-body localization in a quasiperiodic system

Shankar Iyer, Vadim Oganesyan, Gil Refael +1 more

Recent theoretical and numerical evidence suggests that localization can survive in disordered many-body systems with very high energy density, provided that interactions are sufficiently weak. Stronger interactions can destroy localization, leading to a so-called many-body localization transition. This dynamical phase transition is relevant to questions of thermalization in extended quantum systems far from the zero-temperature limit. It separates a many-body localized phase, in which localization prevents transport and thermalization, from a conducting (``ergodic'') phase in which the usual assumptions of quantum statistical mechanics hold. Here, we present numerical evidence that many-body localization also occurs in models without disorder but rather a quasiperiodic potential. In one dimension, these systems already have a single-particle localization transition, and we show that this transition becomes a many-body localization transition upon the introduction of interactions. We also comment on possible relevance of our results to experimental studies of many-body dynamics of cold atoms and nonlinear light in quasiperiodic potentials.

arXiv:1212.4159•Physical Review B•Apr 8, 2013•419 citations

Search for Many-Body Localization in translation invariant systems

François Huveneers, Wojciech De Roeck

We investigate the possibility of many-body localization in translation invariant Hamiltonian systems. A key feature of many-body localized disordered systems is recovered, namely the fact that resonant spots are rare and far-between. However, we point out that resonant spots are mobile, unlike in models with quenched disorder, and that they could therefore in principle delocalize the system. The motion of these resonant spots is reminiscent of motion in kinetically constrained models, the frustration effect being caused by a mismatch of energies rather than by geometric constraints. We provide examples where, in first order in the hopping, the resonant spots are effectively trapped (analogous to a jammed phase) and therefore localization is not ruled out, but we also have examples where, despite the rareness of resonant spots, the resonant spots are not trapped and hence this obvious scenario for many-body localization is not realized. We comment on the analysis of higher orders, but we did not reach a final conclusion yet.

•May 13, 2014•0 citations
We study the statistical and dynamical aspects of a translation-invariant Hamiltonian, without quench disorder, as an example of the manifestation of the phenomenon of many-body localization. This is characterized by the breakdown of thermalization and by information preservation of initial preparations at long times. To realize this, we use quasiperiodic long-range interactions, which are now achievable in high-finesse cavity experiments, to find evidence suggestive of a divergent time-scale in which charge inhomogeneities in the initial state survive asymptotically. This is reminiscent of a glassy behavior, which appears in the ground state of this system, being also present at infinite temperatures.
The phenomenon of localization is usually accompanied with the presence of quenched disorder. To what extent disorder is necessary for localization is a well-known open problem. In this paper, we prove the instability of localization in translation-invariant systems. For any translation-invariant local Hamiltonian exhibiting either Anderson or many-body localization, an arbitrarily small translation-invariant random local perturbation almost surely leads to the following manifestations of delocalization: (i) Transport: For any (inhomogeneous) initial state, the spatial distribution of energy or any other local conserved quantity becomes uniform at late times. (ii) Scrambling: The out-of-time-ordered correlator of any traceless local operators decays to zero at late times. (iii) Thermalization: Random product states locally thermalize to the infinite temperature state with overwhelming probability.
We investigate relaxation in the recently discovered ``fracton'' models and discover that these models naturally host glassy quantum dynamics in the absence of quenched disorder. We begin with a discussion of ``type I'' fracton models, in the taxonomy of Vijay, Haah, and Fu. We demonstrate that in these systems, the mobility of charges is suppressed exponentially in the inverse temperature. We further demonstrate that when a zero-temperature type I fracton model is placed in contact with a finite-temperature heat bath, the approach to equilibrium is a logarithmic function of time over an exponentially wide window of time scales. Generalizing to the more complex ``type II'' fracton models, we find that the charges exhibit subdiffusion up to a relaxation time that diverges at low temperatures as a superexponential function of inverse temperature. This behavior is reminiscent of ``nearly localized'' disordered systems, but occurs with a translation invariant three-dimensional Hamiltonian. We also conjecture that fracton models with conserved charge may support a phase which is a thermal metal but a charge insulator.
We examine localization phenomena associated with generic, high entropy, states of a translation-invariant, one-dimensional spin ladder. At early times, we find slow growth of entanglement entropy consistent with the known phenomenology of many-body localization in disordered, interacting systems. At intermediate times, however, anomalous diffusion sets in, leading to full spin polarization decay on an exponentially activated time scale. We identify a single length scale which parametrically controls both the spin transport times and the apparent divergence of the susceptibility to spin glass ordering. Ultimately, at the latest times, the exponentially slow anomalous diffusion gives way to diffusive thermal behavior. We dub the intermediate dynamical behavior, which persists over many orders of magnitude in time, quasi-many-body localization.
When classical systems fail to explore their entire configurational space, intriguing macroscopic phenomena like aging and glass formation may emerge. Also closed quanto-mechanical systems may stop wandering freely around the whole Hilbert space, even if they are initially prepared into a macroscopically large combination of eigenstates. Here, we report numerical evidences that the dynamics of strongly interacting lattice bosons driven sufficiently far from equilibrium can be trapped into extremely long-lived inhomogeneous metastable states. The slowing down of incoherent density excitations above a threshold energy, much reminiscent of a dynamical arrest on the verge of a glass transition, is identified as the key feature of this phenomenon. We argue that the resulting long-lived inhomogeneities are responsible for the lack of thermalization observed in large systems. Such a rich phenomenology could be experimentally uncovered upon probing the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of conveniently prepared quantum states of trapped cold atoms which we hereby suggest.
Recent theoretical and numerical evidence suggests that localization can survive in disordered many-body systems with very high energy density, provided that interactions are sufficiently weak. Stronger interactions can destroy localization, leading to a so-called many-body localization transition. This dynamical phase transition is relevant to questions of thermalization in extended quantum systems far from the zero-temperature limit. It separates a many-body localized phase, in which localization prevents transport and thermalization, from a conducting (``ergodic'') phase in which the usual assumptions of quantum statistical mechanics hold. Here, we present numerical evidence that many-body localization also occurs in models without disorder but rather a quasiperiodic potential. In one dimension, these systems already have a single-particle localization transition, and we show that this transition becomes a many-body localization transition upon the introduction of interactions. We also comment on possible relevance of our results to experimental studies of many-body dynamics of cold atoms and nonlinear light in quasiperiodic potentials.
We investigate the possibility of many-body localization in translation invariant Hamiltonian systems. A key feature of many-body localized disordered systems is recovered, namely the fact that resonant spots are rare and far-between. However, we point out that resonant spots are mobile, unlike in models with quenched disorder, and that they could therefore in principle delocalize the system. The motion of these resonant spots is reminiscent of motion in kinetically constrained models, the frustration effect being caused by a mismatch of energies rather than by geometric constraints. We provide examples where, in first order in the hopping, the resonant spots are effectively trapped (analogous to a jammed phase) and therefore localization is not ruled out, but we also have examples where, despite the rareness of resonant spots, the resonant spots are not trapped and hence this obvious scenario for many-body localization is not realized. We comment on the analysis of higher orders, but we did not reach a final conclusion yet.