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arXiv:2501.03735 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Thouless approach in transport in integrable and perturbed easy-axis Heisenberg chains

Jakub Pawłowski, Marcin Mierzejewski, Peter Prelovšek

Published May 21, 2025• 4 citations
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Abstract

We study transport in spin chains employing the Thouless approach based on the level sensitivity to the boundary conditions, $R$. Although spin transport in the integrable easy-axis XXZ model is diffusive, the corresponding $R$ is much closer to ballistic chains than to chaotic diffusive systems. In the case of the grand canonical ensemble, this observation can be rigorously justified, while in the case of the canonical ensemble it can be demonstrated by numerical calculations. Integrability-breaking perturbation (IBP) strongly reduces $R$, which reveals a pronounced minimum at the crossover from anomalous diffusive to normal dissipative transport. This minimum coincides with the onset of the universality of the random matrix theory. Results for various IBPs suggest a discontinuous jump of the spin conductivity in the thermodynamic limit, and moreover that its value is proportional to the strength of the IBP.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.111.l201113

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We study transport in spin chains employing the Thouless approach based on the level sensitivity to the boundary conditions, RRR. Although spin transport in the integrable easy-axis XXZ model is diffusive, the corresponding RRR is much closer to ballistic chains than to chaotic diffusive systems. In the case of the grand canonical ensemble, this observation can be rigorously justified, while in the case of the canonical ensemble it can be demonstrated by numerical calculations. Integrability-breaking perturbation (IBP) strongly reduces RRR, which reveals a pronounced minimum at the crossover from anomalous diffusive to normal dissipative transport. This minimum coincides with the onset of the universality of the random matrix theory. Results for various IBPs suggest a discontinuous jump of the spin conductivity in the thermodynamic limit, and moreover that its value is proportional to the strength of the IBP.
The anomalous spin diffusion of the integrable easy-axis Heisenberg chain originates in the ballistic transport of symmetry sectors with nonzero magnetization. Ballistic transport is replaced by normal dissipative transport in all magnetization sectors upon introducing the integrability-breaking perturbations, including external driving. Such behavior implies that the diffusion constant obtained for the integrable model is relevant for the spread of spin excitations but not for the spin conductivity. We present numerical results for closed systems and driven open systems, indicating that the diffusion constant shows a discontinuous variation as the function of perturbation strength.
Understanding the physics of the integrable spin-1/2 XXZ chain has witnessed substantial progress, due to the development and application of sophisticated analytical and numerical techniques. In particular, infinite-temperature magnetization transport has turned out to range from ballistic, over superdiffusive, to diffusive behavior in different parameter regimes of the anisotropy. Since integrability is rather the exception than the rule, a crucial question is the change of transport under integrability-breaking perturbations. This question includes the stability of superdiffusion at the isotropic point and the change of diffusion constants in the easy-axis regime. In our work, we study this change of diffusion constants by a variety of methods and cover both, linear response theory in the closed system and the Lindblad equation in the open system, where we throughout focus on periodic boundary conditions. In the closed system, we compare results from the recursion method to calculations for finite systems and find evidence for a continuous change of diffusion constants over the full range of perturbation strengths. In the open system weakly coupled to baths, we find diffusion constants in quantitative agreement with the ones in the closed system in a range of nonweak perturbations, but disagreement in the limit of weak perturbations. Using a simple model in this limit, we point out the possibility of a diverging diffusion constant in such an open system.
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.
We study magnetization transport in anisotropic spin-12\frac{1}{2}21​ chains governed by the integrable XXZ model with and without integrability-breaking perturbations at high temperatures $(T\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty})$ using a hybrid approach that combines exact sum rules with judiciously chosen Ans\"atze. In the integrable XXZ model we find (i) superdiffusion at the isotropic (Heisenberg) point, with frequency dependent conductivity ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}^{\ensuremath{'}}(\ensuremath{\omega}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0)\ensuremath{\sim}{|\ensuremath{\omega}|}^{\ensuremath{\alpha}}$, where $\ensuremath{\alpha}=\ensuremath{-}3/7$ in close numerical agreement with recent ttt-DMRG computations; (ii) a continuously drifting exponent from $\ensuremath{\alpha}=\ensuremath{-}{1}^{+}$ in the XY (gapless) limit of the model to $\ensuremath{\alpha}>0$ within the Ising (gapped) regime; and (iii) a diffusion constant saturating in the XY coupling deep in the Ising limit. We consider two kinds of next-nearest-neighbor integrability breaking perturbations---a simple spin-flip term (J2)({J}_{2})(J2​) and a three-spin assisted variant (t2)({t}_{2})(t2​), natural in the fermion particle representation of the spin chain. In the first case we discover a remarkable sensitivity of ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}^{\ensuremath{'}}(\ensuremath{\omega})$ to the sign of J2{J}_{2}J2​, with enhanced low frequency spectral weight and a pronounced upward shift in the magnitude of $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ for J2>0{J}_{2}>0J2​>0. Perhaps even more surprising, we find subdiffusion $(\ensuremath{\alpha}>0)$ over a range of J2<0{J}_{2}<0J2​<0. By contrast, the effects of the ``fermionic'' three-spin perturbation are sign symmetric; this perturbation produces a clearly observable hydrodynamic relaxation. At large strength of the integrability breaking term ${J}_{2}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\ensuremath{\infty}$ the problem is effectively noninteracting (fermions hopping on odd and even sublattices) and we find $\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{-}1$ behavior reminiscent of the XY limit of the integrable XXZ chain. Exact diagonalization studies largely corroborate these findings over accessible frequencies.
We study the ballistic-to-diffusive transition induced by the weak breaking of integrability in a boundary-driven XXZ spin chain. Studying the evolution of the spin current density Js{\mathcal{J}}^{s}Js as a function of the system size LLL, we show that, accounting for boundary effects, the transition has a nontrivial universal behavior close to the XX limit. It is controlled by the scattering length ${L}^{*}\ensuremath{\propto}{V}^{\ensuremath{-}2}$, where VVV is the strength of the integrability-breaking term. In the XXZ model, the interplay of interactions controls the emergence of a transient ``quasiballistic'' regime at length scales much shorter than L∗{L}^{*}L∗. This parametrically large regime is characterized by a strong renormalization of the current which forbids a universal scaling, unlike the XX model. Our results are based on matrix product operator numerical simulations and agree with perturbative analytical calculations.
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.