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arXiv:2304.08849 · Physical Review A

Boosting entanglement growth of many-body localization by superpositions of disorder

Jhen-Dong Lin, Yueh-Nan Chen

Published Aug 7, 2023• 4 citations
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Abstract

Many-body localization (MBL) can occur when strong disorders prevent an interacting system from thermalization. To study the dynamics of such systems, performing an ensemble average over many different disorder configurations is typically necessary. Previous works have utilized an algorithm in which different disorder profiles are mapped into a quantum ancilla. By preparing the ancilla in a quantum superposition state, quantum parallelism can be harnessed to obtain the ensemble average in a single computation run. In this work, we modify this algorithm by performing a measurement on the ancilla. This enables the determination of conditional dynamics not only by the ensemble average but also by the quantum interference effect. Using a phenomenological analysis based on local integrals of motion, we demonstrate that this protocol can lead to an enhancement of the dephasing effect and a boost in entanglement growth for systems in the deep MBL phase. For a typical MBL system with short-range interactions, reaching saturation in entanglement usually takes an exponentially long time, which makes experimental explorations of long-time properties challenging. With our protocol, we demonstrate a significant reduction in the saturation time by several orders. This advancement facilitates easier access to the behavior in the long-time regime. We also present numerical simulations of the random $XXZ$ model where this enhancement is also present in a smaller disorder strength, beyond the deep MBL regime.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.108.022203

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Many-body localization (MBL) can occur when strong disorders prevent an interacting system from thermalization. To study the dynamics of such systems, performing an ensemble average over many different disorder configurations is typically necessary. Previous works have utilized an algorithm in which different disorder profiles are mapped into a quantum ancilla. By preparing the ancilla in a quantum superposition state, quantum parallelism can be harnessed to obtain the ensemble average in a single computation run. In this work, we modify this algorithm by performing a measurement on the ancilla. This enables the determination of conditional dynamics not only by the ensemble average but also by the quantum interference effect. Using a phenomenological analysis based on local integrals of motion, we demonstrate that this protocol can lead to an enhancement of the dephasing effect and a boost in entanglement growth for systems in the deep MBL phase. For a typical MBL system with short-range interactions, reaching saturation in entanglement usually takes an exponentially long time, which makes experimental explorations of long-time properties challenging. With our protocol, we demonstrate a significant reduction in the saturation time by several orders. This advancement facilitates easier access to the behavior in the long-time regime. We also present numerical simulations of the random XXZXXZXXZ model where this enhancement is also present in a smaller disorder strength, beyond the deep MBL regime.
Abstract The connection between entanglement dynamics and non-equilibrium statistics in isolated many-body quantum systems has been established both theoretically and experimentally. Many-body localization (MBL), a phenomenon where interacting particles in disordered (i.e. random) chains fail to thermalize, exemplifies this connection. However, the systematic proof of critical phenomena such as MBL remains challenging due to the lack of robust methods for analyzing many-body entanglement dynamics. In this paper, we identify MBL through quasi-periodic dynamics in the entanglement evolution of subsystems in a disordered Heisenberg chain. This new form of characterizing MBL, through stable quasi-periodic dynamics of entanglement-where ‘stable’ means they persist in the thermodynamic limit—concretely distinguishes between two competing scenarios: fully localized behavior of subsystems or slowly, exponentially slow in disorder, thermalizing subsystems—a heated controversy in the literature. Utilizing perturbation theory, we derive the entanglement dynamics of single spins through an infinite perturbative series, while also modeling rare Griffiths regions (locally thermal inclusions). Our results prove that in regimes of sufficiently strong disorder, the entanglement evolution of individual subsystems remains quasi-periodic in the thermodynamic limit, thereby providing concrete evidence for the stability of MBL dynamics in disordered Heisenberg chains. This behavior contrasts with the widely reported logarithmic growth of subsystem entanglement in the MBL phase. We show that the logarithmic growth observed in prior studies arises from statistical ensemble averaging, which is prohibited due to the intrinsic non-ergodic dynamics characteristic of MBL systems, rooted in their quasi-periodic features.
We present a theoretical and numerical study of the many-body localization (MBL) transition and entanglement dynamics in disordered spin-fermion chains with long-range interactions. Moving beyond standard single-particle pictures, we investigate the breakdown of ergodicity and thermalization by constructing an effective Hamiltonian via iterative Schrieffer-Wolff transformations and utilizing the local integrals of motion (l-bits) formalism. Our analysis examines entanglement entropy growth, level spacing statistics, and the transition from Wigner-Dyson to Poisson statistics. Furthermore, we derive analytical estimates for the dephasing rate scaling as a function of long-range potential parameters and validate the theoretical findings using exact diagonalization (ED) numerical protocols with finite-size scaling.
The interplay of interactions and strong disorder can lead to an exotic quantum many-body localized (MBL) phase of matter. Beyond the absence of transport, the MBL phase has distinctive signatures, such as slow dephasing and logarithmic entanglement growth; they commonly result in slow and subtle modifications of the dynamics, rendering their measurement challenging. Here, we experimentally characterize these properties of the MBL phase in a system of coupled superconducting qubits. By implementing phase sensitive techniques, we map out the structure of local integrals of motion in the MBL phase. Tomographic reconstruction of single and two-qubit density matrices allows us to determine the spatial and temporal entanglement growth between the localized sites. In addition, we study the preservation of entanglement in the MBL phase. The interferometric protocols implemented here detect affirmative quantum correlations and exclude artifacts due to the imperfect isolation of the system. By measuring elusive MBL quantities, our work highlights the advantages of phase sensitive measurements in studying novel phases of matter.
When a system thermalizes it loses all memory of its initial conditions. Even within a closed quantum system, subsystems usually thermalize using the rest of the system as a heat bath. Exceptions to quantum thermalization have been observed, but typically require inherent symmetries or noninteracting particles in the presence of static disorder. The prediction of many-body localization (MBL), in which disordered quantum systems can fail to thermalize despite strong interactions and high excitation energy, was therefore surprising and has attracted considerable theoretical attention. We experimentally generate MBL states by applying an Ising Hamiltonian with long-range interactions and programmably random disorder to ten spins initialized far from equilibrium with respect to the Hamiltonian. Using experimental and numerical methods we observe the essential signatures of MBL: initial state memory retention, Poissonian distributed many-body energy level spacings, and evidence of long-time entanglement growth. Our platform can be scaled to more spins, where detailed modeling of MBL becomes impossible.
Many-body localization (MBL) provides a mechanism by which interacting quantum systems evade thermalization, leading to persistent memory of initial conditions and slow entanglement growth. Probing these dynamical signatures in large systems and at long evolution times remains challenging for both classical simulations and current quantum devices. Here we experimentally investigate the ergodic-MBL crossover in quasiperiodic Floquet Ising systems using up to 144 qubits on an IBM Quantum processor. By implementing deep Floquet circuits reaching up to 5000 cycles, we access long-time many-body dynamics beyond the regime explored in previous quantum computing experiments. Measurements of autocorrelation functions reveal a smooth crossover from rapid thermalization at weak quasiperiodic potential strength to persistent correlations in the strong-disorder regime. Notably, in addition to the one-dimensional system, we also observe clear signatures consistent with localization behavior in the two-dimensional system. Furthermore, the quantum Fisher information exhibits logarithmic growth over thousands of Floquet cycles, providing evidence for slow entanglement spreading characteristic of the MBL regime. These results demonstrate that programmable quantum processors can serve as experimental platforms for probing nonergodic quantum many-body dynamics and exploring localization phenomena in regimes beyond the reach of classical simulations.
The law of statistical physics dictates that generic closed quantum many-body systems initialized in nonequilibrium will thermalize under their own dynamics. However, the emergence of many-body localization (MBL) owing to the interplay between interaction and disorder, which is in stark contrast to Anderson localization, which only addresses noninteracting particles in the presence of disorder, greatly challenges this concept, because it prevents the systems from evolving to the ergodic thermalized state. One critical evidence of MBL is the long-time logarithmic growth of entanglement entropy, and a direct observation of it is still elusive due to the experimental challenges in multiqubit single-shot measurement and quantum state tomography. Here we present an experiment fully emulating the MBL dynamics with a 10-qubit superconducting quantum processor, which represents a spin-1/2 XY model featuring programmable disorder and long-range spin-spin interactions. We provide essential signatures of MBL, such as the imbalance due to the initial nonequilibrium, the violation of eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, and, more importantly, the direct evidence of the long-time logarithmic growth of entanglement entropy. Our results lay solid foundations for precisely simulating the intriguing physics of quantum many-body systems on the platform of large-scale multiqubit superconducting quantum processors.