Many-body localization (MBL) is well characterized in Fock space. To quantify the degree of this Fock-space localization, the multifractal dimension
Dq is employed; it has been claimed that
Dq shows a jump from the delocalized value
Dq=1 in the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) phase to a smaller value
0<Dq<1 at the ETH-MBL transition, yet exhibiting a conspicuous discrepancy from the fully localized value
Dq=0, which indicates that multifractality remains inside the MBL phase. Here, to better quantify the situation, we employ, instead of the commonly used computational basis, the one-particle density matrix (OPDM) and use its eigenstates (natural orbitals) as a Fock state basis for representing many-body eigenstates $|\ensuremath{\psi}\ensuremath{\rangle}$ of the system. Using this basis, we compute
Dq and other indices quantifying the Fock-space localization, such as the local purity
S, which is derived from the occupation spectrum ${{n}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}}}$ (eigenvalues of the OPDM). We highlight the statistical distribution of Hamming distance ${x}_{\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\nu}}$ occurring in the pairwise coefficients $|{a}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}{|}^{2}{|{a}_{\ensuremath{\nu}}|}^{2}$ in
S, and compare this with a related quantity considered in the literature.
We numerically investigate one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard chains with on-site disorder by means of exact diagonalization. A primary focus of our work is on characterizing Fock-space localization in this model from the single-particle perspective. For this purpose, we compute the one-particle density matrix (OPDM) in many-body eigenstates. We show that the natural orbitals (the eigenstates of the OPDM) are extended in the ergodic phase and real-space localized when one enters the many-body localization (MBL) phase. Furthermore, the distributions of occupations of the natural orbitals can be used as measures of Fock-space localization in the respective basis. Consistent with previous studies, we observe signatures of a transition from the ergodic to the MBL regime when increasing the disorder strength. We further demonstrate that Fock-space localization, albeit weaker, is also evidently present in the distribution of the physical densities in the MBL regime, for both soft- and hard-core bosons. Moreover, the full distribution of the densities of the physical particles provides a one-particle measure for the detection of the ergodic-MBL transition which could be directly accessed in experiments with ultracold gases.
We study interacting fermions in one dimension subject to random, uncorrelated onsite disorder, a paradigmatic model of many‐body localization (MBL). This model realizes an interaction‐driven quantum phase transition between an ergodic and a many‐body localized phase, with the transition occurring in the many‐body eigenstates. We propose a single‐particle framework to characterize these phases by the eigenstates (the natural orbitals) and the eigenvalues (the occupation spectrum) of the one‐particle density matrix (OPDM) in individual many‐body eigenstates. As a main result, we find that the natural orbitals are localized in the MBL phase, but delocalized in the ergodic phase. This qualitative change in these single‐particle states is a many‐body effect, since without interactions the single‐particle energy eigenstates are all localized. The occupation spectrum in the ergodic phase is thermal in agreement with the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, while in the MBL phase the occupations preserve a discontinuity at an emergent Fermi edge. This suggests that the MBL eigenstates are weakly dressed Slater determinants, with the eigenstates of the underlying Anderson problem as reference states. We discuss the statistical properties of the natural orbitals and of the occupation spectrum in the two phases and as the transition is approached. Our results are consistent with the existing picture of emergent integrability and localized integrals of motion, or quasiparticles, in the MBL phase. We emphasize the close analogy of the MBL phase to a zero‐temperature Fermi liquid: in the studied model, the MBL phase is adiabatically connected to the Anderson insulator and the occupation‐spectrum discontinuity directly indicates the presence of quasiparticles localized in real space. Finally, we show that the same picture emerges for interacting fermions in the presence of an experimentally‐relevant bichromatic lattice and thereby demonstrate that our findings are not limited to a specific model. image