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arXiv:2405.18188 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Characterizing dynamical criticality of many-body localization transitions from a Fock-space perspective

Zheng‐Hang Sun, Yong-Yi Wang, Jian Cui, Heng Fan, Markus Heyl

Published Mar 27, 2025• 4 citations
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Abstract

Characterizing the nature of many-body localization transitions (MBLTs) and their potential critical behaviors has remained a challenging problem. In this work, we study the dynamics of the displacement, quantifying the spread of the radial probability distribution in the Fock space, for three systems with MBLTs, i.e., the Hamiltonian models with quasiperiodic and random fields, as well as a random-circuit Floquet model of a MBLT. We then perform a finite-size scaling analysis of the long-time averaged displacement by considering two types of ansatz for MBLTs, i.e., continuous and Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transitions. The data collapse based on the assumption of a continuous phase transition with power-law correlation length reveals that the scaling exponent of the MBLT induced by random field is close to that of the Floquet model, but significantly differs from the quasiperiodic model. Additionally, we find that the BKT-type scaling provides a more accurate description of the MBLTs in the random model and the Floquet model, yielding larger (finite-size) critical points compared to those obtained from power-law scaling. Our work highlights that the displacement is a valuable tool for studying MBLTs, and is relevant to ongoing experimental efforts.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.111.094210

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Characterizing the nature of many-body localization transitions (MBLTs) and their potential critical behaviors has remained a challenging problem. In this work, we study the dynamics of the displacement, quantifying the spread of the radial probability distribution in the Fock space, for three systems with MBLTs, i.e., the Hamiltonian models with quasiperiodic and random fields, as well as a random-circuit Floquet model of a MBLT. We then perform a finite-size scaling analysis of the long-time averaged displacement by considering two types of ansatz for MBLTs, i.e., continuous and Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transitions. The data collapse based on the assumption of a continuous phase transition with power-law correlation length reveals that the scaling exponent of the MBLT induced by random field is close to that of the Floquet model, but significantly differs from the quasiperiodic model. Additionally, we find that the BKT-type scaling provides a more accurate description of the MBLTs in the random model and the Floquet model, yielding larger (finite-size) critical points compared to those obtained from power-law scaling. Our work highlights that the displacement is a valuable tool for studying MBLTs, and is relevant to ongoing experimental efforts.
We analyze the finite-size scaling of the average gap ratio and the entanglement entropy across the many-body localization (MBL) transition in one dimensional Heisenberg spin chain with quasiperiodic (QP) potential. By using the recently introduced cost-function approach, we compare different scenarios for the transition using exact diagonalization of systems up to 22 lattice sites. Our findings suggest that the MBL transition in the QP Heisenberg chain belongs to the class of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition, the same as in the case of uniformly disordered systems as advocated in recent studies. Moreover, we observe that the critical disorder strength shows a clear sublinear drift with the system size as compared to the linear drift seen in random disordered models, suggesting that the finite-size effects in the MBL transition for the QP systems are less severe than that in the random disordered scenario. Moreover, deep in the ergodic regime, we find an unexpected double-peak structure of distribution of on-site magnetizations that can be traced back to the strong correlations present in the QP potential.
Characterizing the delocalization transition in closed quantum systems with a many-body localized phase is a key open question in the field of nonequilibrium physics. We exploit the fact that localization of particles as realized in Anderson localization and standard many-body localization (MBL) implies Fock-space localization in single-particle basis sets characterized by a real-space index. Using a recently introduced quantitative measure for Fock-space localization computed from the density distributions, the occupation distance, we systematically study its scaling behavior across delocalization transitions and identify critical points from scaling collapses of numerical data. Excellent agreement with literature results is found for the critical disorder strengths of noninteracting fermions, such as the one-dimensional Aubry-Andr\'e model and the three-dimensional Anderson model. We observe a distinctively different scaling behavior in the case of interacting fermions with random disorder consistent with a Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. Finally, we use our measure to extract the transition point as a function of filling for interacting fermions.
We implement a recursive Green's function method to extract the Fock space (FS) propagator and associated self-energy across the many-body localization (MBL) transition, for one-dimensional interacting fermions in a random on-site potential. We show that the typical value of the imaginary part of the local FS self-energy, ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{t}$, related to the decay rate of an initially localized state, acts as a probabilistic order parameter for the thermal to MBL phase transition and can be used to characterize critical properties of the transition as well as the multifractal nature of MBL states as a function of disorder strength WWW. In particular, we show that a fractal dimension Ds{D}_{s}Ds​ extracted from ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{t}$ jumps discontinuously across the transition, from Ds<1{D}_{s}<1Ds​<1 in the MBL phase to Ds=1{D}_{s}=1Ds​=1 in the thermal phase. Moreover, ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{t}$ follows an asymmetrical finite-size scaling form across the thermal-MBL transition, where a nonergodic volume in the thermal phase diverges with a Kosterlitz-Thouless--like essential singularity at the critical point Wc{W}_{c}Wc​ and controls the continuous vanishing of ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{t}$ as Wc{W}_{c}Wc​ is approached. In contrast, a correlation length ($\ensuremath{\xi}$) extracted from ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{t}$ exhibits a power-law divergence on approaching Wc{W}_{c}Wc​ from the MBL phase.
We propose a scaling theory for the many-body localization (MBL) phase transition in one dimension, building on the idea that it proceeds via a ``quantum avalanche.'' We argue that the critical properties can be captured at a coarse-grained level by a Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT) renormalization group (RG) flow. On phenomenological grounds, we identify the scaling variables as the density of thermal regions and the length scale that controls the decay of typical matrix elements. Within this KT picture, the MBL phase is a line of fixed points that terminates at the delocalization transition. We discuss two possible scenarios distinguished by the distribution of rare, fractal thermal inclusions within the MBL phase. In the first scenario, these regions have a stretched exponential distribution in the MBL phase. In the second scenario, the near-critical MBL phase hosts rare thermal regions that are power-law-distributed in size. This points to the existence of a second transition within the MBL phase, at which these power laws change to the stretched exponential form expected at strong disorder. We numerically simulate two different phenomenological RGs previously proposed to describe the MBL transition. Both RGs display a universal power-law length distribution of thermal regions at the transition with a critical exponent ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{c}=2$, and continuously varying exponents in the MBL phase consistent with the KT picture.
We study localization and many-body localization transition in one-dimensional systems in the presence of deterministic quasiperiodic potential. We use single-particle excitations obtained through single-particle Green's function in real space to characterize the localization to delocalization transition. A single parameter scaling analysis of the ratio of the typical to average value of the local density of states (LDOS) of single-particle excitations shows that the critical exponent with which the correlation length $\ensuremath{\xi}$ diverges at the transition point $\ensuremath{\xi}\ensuremath{\sim}|h\ensuremath{-}{h}_{c}{|}^{\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\nu}}$, coming from the localized side, satisfies the inequality $\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\ge}1$ for the noninteracting Aubry-Andre (AA) model. For the interacting system with AA potential, we study single-particle excitations produced in highly excited many-body eigenstates across the MBL transition and found that the critical exponent obtained from finite-size scaling of the ratio of the typical to average value of the LDOS satisfies $\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\ge}1$ here as well. This analysis of the local density of states shows that the localization and MBL transition in systems with quasiperiodic potential belong to a different universality class than the localization and MBL transition in systems with random disorder where $\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\ge}2$. In complete contrast to this, finite-size scaling of the level spacing ratio is known to support the same universality class for MBL transitions in systems with quasiperiodic as well as random disorder potentials. For the interacting systems with quasiperiodic potentials, though finite-size scaling of the level spacing ratio shows a transition at hclsr{h}_{c}^{\mathrm{lsr}}hclsr​ which is close to the transition point obtained from LDOS within numerical precision, the critical exponent obtained from finite-size scaling of level spacing ratio is $\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\sim}0.54$ in close similarity to the MBL systems with random disorder.
We theoretically study transport properties in one-dimensional interacting quasiperiodic systems at infinite temperature. We compare and contrast the dynamical transport properties across the many-body localization (MBL) transition in quasiperiodic and random models. Using exact diagonalization we compute the optical conductivity $\ensuremath{\sigma}(\ensuremath{\omega})$ and the return probability $R(\ensuremath{\tau})$ and study their average low-frequency and long-time power-law behavior, respectively. We show that the low-energy transport dynamics is markedly distinct in both the thermal and MBL phases in quasiperiodic and random models and find that the diffusive and MBL regimes of the quasiperiodic model are more robust than those in the random system. Using the distribution of the dc conductivity, we quantify the contribution of sample-to-sample and state-to-state fluctuations of $\ensuremath{\sigma}(\ensuremath{\omega})$ across the MBL transition. We find that the activated dynamical scaling ansatz works poorly in the quasiperiodic model but holds in the random model with an estimated activation exponent $\ensuremath{\psi}\ensuremath{\approx}0.9$. We argue that near the MBL transition in quasiperiodic systems, critical eigenstates give rise to a subdiffusive crossover regime on finite-size systems.