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arXiv:2203.09526 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Distinct universality classes of diffusive transport from full counting statistics

Sarang Gopalakrishnan, Alan Morningstar, Romain Vasseur, Vedika Khemani

Published Jan 12, 2024• 41 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The authors provide an analytic theory of the transport of magnetization in a set of interacting anisotropic spin chains. Even though these are many-body systems with diffusive transport on average, the full distribution that gives rise to that average is far from Gaussian -- with fluctuations that, unlike conventional diffusion, are comparable to the mean. This is an example of how systems with the same hydrodynamics can belong to distinct dynamical universality classes.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.109.024417

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The authors provide an analytic theory of the transport of magnetization in a set of interacting anisotropic spin chains. Even though these are many-body systems with diffusive transport on average, the full distribution that gives rise to that average is far from Gaussian -- with fluctuations that, unlike conventional diffusion, are comparable to the mean. This is an example of how systems with the same hydrodynamics can belong to distinct dynamical universality classes.
Recent studies have found that fluctuations of magnetization transfer in integrable spin chains violate the central limit property. Here, we revisit the problem of anomalous counting statistics in the Landau-Lifshitz field theory by specializing to two distinct anomalous regimes featuring a dynamical critical point. By performing optimized numerical simulations using an integrable space-time discretization, we extract the algebraic growth exponents of time-dependent cumulants which attain their threshold values. The distinctly non-Gaussian statistics of magnetization transfer in the easy-axis regime is found to converge toward the universal distribution of charged single-file systems. At the isotropic point, we infer a weakly non-Gaussian distribution, corroborating the view that superdiffusive spin transport in integrable spin chains does not belong to any known dynamical universality class.
We report a systematic study of finite-temperature spin transport in quantum and classical one-dimensional magnets with isotropic spin interactions, including both integrable and nonintegrable models. Employing a phenomenological framework based on a generalized Burgers' equation in a time-dependent stochastic environment, we identify four different universality classes of spin fluctuations. These comprise, aside from normal spin diffusion, three types of superdiffusive transport: the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class and two distinct types of anomalous diffusion with multiplicative logarithmic corrections. Our predictions are supported by extensive numerical simulations on various examples of quantum and classical chains. Contrary to common belief, we demonstrate that even nonintegrable spin chains can display a diverging spin diffusion constant at finite temperatures.
Abstract Understanding universal behavior of far-from-equilibrium transport dynamics at a quantum many-body level is a longstanding challenge. A full characterization of universal dynamics of nonlocal correlation functions still remains largely unknown. In this letter, we uncover universal scaling laws of higher-order cumulants in one-dimensional isotropic Heisenberg model, revealing anomalous behaviors of nonequilibrium dynamics exclusively accessible in higher-order correlation functions. Using numerical simulations and full counting statistics, we determine the power laws of both the spin polarization transfer and contrast cumulants for different kinds of helix and domain-wall initial states. Building on such physical states, we unify the scaling behavior of the higher-order cumulants as two types of dynamics: anomalous diffusive and superdiffusive. For the former, these higher cumulants show a deviation from Gaussian statistics, with the scaling exponents being identical for the first four orders. For the latter, however, we observe a breakdown of KPZ universality, with the exponents of the third and fourth orders differing significantly from those of the first two. Our results are also agreeable with recent experimental observations, advancing understanding of far-from-equilibrium transport phenomena.
A universal characterization of non-equilibrium steady states in interacting quantum many-body systems remains one of the central challenges of statistical physics. Here, we address this problem for a paradigmatic model of diffusive interacting quantum matter---the boundary-driven XXZ spin chain with bulk dephasing---and derive, directly from its microscopic Lindblad dynamics, an emergent classical Macroscopic Fluctuation Theory (MFT) governing its large-scale fluctuations. Crucially, the resulting hydrodynamics carries a density-dependent diffusivity and mobility as the fingerprint of interactions. This effective description enables the exact computation of the stationary density profile, long-range correlations, and the full counting statistics of the current, in excellent agreement with tensor-network simulations. Our work demonstrates that noisy quantum many-body systems can realize the universality class of genuinely interacting diffusive matter, beyond the constant-diffusivity class of the symmetric simple exclusion process, and establishes MFT as a powerful universal framework for interacting diffusive quantum systems.
The Heisenberg spin chain is a canonical integrable model. As such, it features stable ballistically propagating quasiparticles, but spin transport is subballistic at any nonzero temperature: An initially localized spin fluctuation spreads in time t to a width t2/3. This exponent as well as the functional form of the dynamical spin correlation function suggest that spin transport is in the Kardar–Parisi–Zhang (KPZ) universality class. However, the full counting statistics of magnetization is manifestly incompatible with KPZ scaling. A simple two-mode hydrodynamic description, derivable from microscopic principles, captures both the KPZ scaling of the correlation function and the coarse features of the full counting statistics, but remains to be numerically validated. These results generalize to any integrable spin chain invariant under a continuous nonabelian symmetry and are surprisingly robust against moderately strong integrability-breaking perturbations that respect the nonabelian symmetry.
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.