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arXiv:2103.01976 · Journal of Statistical Mechanics Theory and Experiment

Superdiffusion in spin chains

Vir B. Bulchandani, Sarang Gopalakrishnan, Enej Ilievski

Published Aug 1, 2021• 152 citations
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Abstract

Abstract This review summarizes recent advances in our understanding of anomalous transport in spin chains, viewed through the lens of integrability. Numerical advances, based on tensor-network methods, have shown that transport in many canonical integrable spin chains—most famously the Heisenberg model—is anomalous. Concurrently, the framework of generalized hydrodynamics has been extended to explain some of the mechanisms underlying anomalous transport. We present what is currently understood about these mechanisms, and discuss how they resemble (and differ from) the mechanisms for anomalous transport in other contexts. We also briefly review potential transport anomalies in systems where integrability is an emergent or approximate property. We survey instances of anomalous transport and dynamics that remain to be understood.

DOI
10.1088/1742-5468/ac12c7

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Abstract This review summarizes recent advances in our understanding of anomalous transport in spin chains, viewed through the lens of integrability. Numerical advances, based on tensor-network methods, have shown that transport in many canonical integrable spin chains—most famously the Heisenberg model—is anomalous. Concurrently, the framework of generalized hydrodynamics has been extended to explain some of the mechanisms underlying anomalous transport. We present what is currently understood about these mechanisms, and discuss how they resemble (and differ from) the mechanisms for anomalous transport in other contexts. We also briefly review potential transport anomalies in systems where integrability is an emergent or approximate property. We survey instances of anomalous transport and dynamics that remain to be understood.
Many experimentally relevant quantum spin chains are approximately integrable, and support long-lived quasiparticle excitations. A canonical example of integrable model of quantum magnetism is the XXZ spin chain, for which energy spreads ballistically, but, surprisingly, spin transport can be diffusive or superdiffusive. We review the transport properties of this model using an intuitive quasiparticle picture that relies on the recently introduced framework of generalized hydrodynamics. We discuss how anomalous linear response properties emerge from hierarchies of quasiparticles both in integrable and near-integrable limits, with an emphasis on the role of hydrodynamic fluctuations. We also comment on recent developments including non-linear response, full-counting statistics and far-from-equilibrium transport. We provide an overview of recent numerical and experimental results on transport in XXZ spin chains.
We address the nature of spin transport in the integrable XXZ spin chain, focusing on the isotropic Heisenberg limit. We calculate the diffusion constant using a kinetic picture based on generalized hydrodynamics combined with Gaussian fluctuations: we find that it diverges, and show that a self-consistent treatment of this divergence gives superdiffusion, with an effective time-dependent diffusion constant that scales as D(t)∼t^{1/3}. This exponent had previously been observed in large-scale numerical simulations, but had not been theoretically explained. We briefly discuss XXZ models with easy-axis anisotropy Δ>1. Our method gives closed-form expressions for the diffusion constant D in the infinite-temperature limit for all Δ>1. We find that D saturates at large anisotropy, and diverges as the Heisenberg limit is approached, as D∼(Δ-1)^{-1/2}.
Finite-temperature spin transport in integrable isotropic spin chains (i.e., spin chains with continuous non-Abelian symmetries) is known to be superdiffusive, with anomalous transport properties displaying remarkable robustness to isotropic integrability-breaking perturbations. Using a discrete-time classical model, we numerically study the crossover to conventional diffusion resulting from both noisy and Floquet isotropic perturbations of strength $\ensuremath{\lambda}$. We identify an anomalously-long crossover timescale ${t}_{★}\ensuremath{\sim}{\ensuremath{\lambda}}^{\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\alpha}}$ with $\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{\approx}6$ in both cases. We discuss our results in terms of a kinetic theory of transport that characterizes the lifetimes of large solitons responsible for superdiffusion.
Abstract Generalized hydrodynamics (GHD) has successfully addressed several open questions regarding finite-temperature ( T > 0) transport in one-dimensional (1D) integrable models, including the mechanisms behind anomalous superdiffusive transport. However, disagreements persist concerning finite-temperature charge transport in the 1D Hubbard model at zero chemical potential ( µ = 0). These disagreements do not arise from the GHD framework itself but rather from differing treatments of the model’s global symmetry at the h = μ = 0 point, where h is the magnetic field. Specifically, the controversy concerns whether finite-temperature charge transport at µ = 0 is anomalous superdiffusive, as predicted using GHD when only the SU (2) × SU (2) symmetries are considered, or instead normal diffusive, as found when employing a representation that fully accounts for the model’s global [ SU (2) × SU (2) × U (1)]/ Z 2 2 symmetry at h = μ = 0 . This work aims to contribute to resolving this issue and advancing the understanding of transport in such systems. We begin by briefly reviewing GHD and other methods predictions regarding anomalous superdiffusive spin transport at finite temperature in gapless 1D integrable models such as the spin- 1 / 2 XXX chain at h = 0 and the 1D Hubbard model at h = μ = 0 . We then review T > 0 transport results in gapped 1D integrable models, focusing on charge transport in the 1D Hubbard model at h = μ = 0 and spin transport in the spin- 1 / 2 XXZ chain at h = 0 with anisotropy Δ > 1 . We identify and discuss the origin of the aforementioned discrepancies, showing how their resolution leads to a deeper understanding of anomalous superdiffusion.
We address spin transport in the easy-axis Heisenberg spin chain subject to different integrability-breaking perturbations. We find subdiffusive spin transport characterized by dynamical exponent z = 4 up to a timescale parametrically long in the anisotropy. In the limit of infinite anisotropy, transport is subdiffusive at all times; for finite anisotropy, one eventually recovers diffusion at late times but with a diffusion constant independent of the strength of the perturbation and solely fixed by the value of the anisotropy. We provide numerical evidence for these findings, and we show how they can be understood in terms of the dynamical screening of the relevant quasiparticle excitations and effective dynamical constraints. Our results show that the diffusion constant of near-integrable diffusive spin chains is generically not perturbative in the integrability-breaking strength.
Isotropic integrable spin chains such as the Heisenberg model feature superdiffusive spin transport belonging to an as-yet-unidentified dynamical universality class closely related to that of Kardar, Parisi, and Zhang (KPZ). To determine whether these results extend to more generic one-dimensional models, particularly those realizable in quantum simulators, we investigate spin and energy transport in non-integrable, long-range Heisenberg models using state-of-the-art tensor network methods. Despite the lack of integrability and the asymptotic expectation of diffusion, for power-law models (with exponent 2<α<∞2 < α< \infty2<α<∞) we observe long-lived z=3/2z=3/2z=3/2 superdiffusive spin transport and two-point correlators consistent with KPZ scaling functions, up to times t∼103/Jt \sim 10^3/Jt∼103/J. We conjecture that this KPZ-like transport is due to the proximity of such power-law-interacting models to the integrable family of Inozemtsev models, which we show to also exhibit KPZ-like spin transport across all interaction ranges. Finally, we consider anisotropic spin models naturally realized in Rydberg atom arrays and ultracold polar molecules, demonstrating that a wide range of long-lived, non-diffusive transport can be observed in experimental settings.