The random field S=1/2 Heisenberg chain exhibits a dynamical many body localization transition at a critical disorder strength, which depends on the energy density. At weak disorder, the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) is fulfilled on average, making local observables smooth functions of energy, whose eigenstate-to-eigenstate fluctuations decrease exponentially with system size. We demonstrate the validity of ETH in the thermal phase as well as its breakdown in the localized phase and show that rare states exist which do not strictly follow ETH, becoming more frequent closer to the transition. Similarly, the probability distribution of the entanglement entropy at intermediate disorder develops long tails all the way down to zero entanglement. We propose that these low entanglement tails stem from localized regions at the subsystem boundaries which were recently discussed as a possible mechanism for subdiffusive transport in the ergodic phase.
We study the eigenstates of a paradigmatic model of many-body localization in the Fock basis constructed out of the natural orbitals. By numerically studying the participation ratio, we identify a sharp crossover between different phases at a disorder strength close to the disorder strength at which subdiffusive behaviour sets in, significantly below the many-body localization transition. We repeat the analysis in the conventionally used computational basis, and show that many-body localized eigenstates are much stronger localized in the Fock basis constructed out of the natural orbitals than …
We numerically explore $\mathbb Z_2$-symmetric random interacting Ising-Majorana chains at high energy. A very rich phase diagram emerges with two topologically distinct many-body localization (MBL) regimes separated by a much broader thermal phase than previously found. This is a striking consequence of the avalanche theory. We further find MBL spin-glass order always associated to a many-body spectral pairing, presumably signaling a strong zero mode operator which opens fascinating perspectives for MBL-protected topological qubits.
The many-body localization transition is a dynamical quantum phase transition between a localized and an extended phase. We study this transition in the XXZ model with disordered magnetic field and focus on the time evolution following a global quantum quench. While the dynamics of the bipartite entanglement and spin fluctuations are already known to provide insights into the nature of the many-body localized phases, we discuss the relevance of these quantities in the context of the localization transition. In particular, we observe that near the transition the long time limits of both quantit…
We reinvestigate the behavior of the conductivity of several disordered quantum lattice models at infinite temperature using exact diagonalization. Contrary to the conclusion drawn in a recent investigation of similar quantities in identical systems, we find evidence of a localized regime for strong random fields. We estimate the location of the critical field for the many-body localization transition for the random-field XXZ spin chain, and compare our findings with recent investigations in related systems.
We generalize Page's result on the entanglement entropy of random pure states to the many-body eigenstates of realistic disordered many-body systems subject to long range interactions. This extension leads to two principal conclusions: first, for increasing disorder the "shells" of constant energy supporting a system's eigenstates fill only a fraction of its full Fock space and are subject to intrinsic correlations absent in synthetic high-dimensional random lattice systems. Second, in all regimes preceding the many-body localization transition individual eigenstates are thermally distributed …
We present a large scale exact diagonalization study of the one dimensional spin $1/2$ Heisenberg model in a random magnetic field. In order to access properties at varying energy densities across the entire spectrum for system sizes up to $L=22$ spins, we use a spectral transformation which can be applied in a massively parallel fashion. Our results allow for an energy-resolved interpretation of the many body localization transition including the existence of an extensive many-body mobility edge. The ergodic phase is well characterized by Gaussian orthogonal ensemble statistics, volume-law en…
We demonstrate many-body localization (MBL) transition in a one-dimensional isotropic XY chain with a weak next-nearest-neighbor frustration in a random magnetic field. We perform finite-size exact diagonalization calculations of level-spacing statistics and fractal dimensions to characterize the MBL transition with increasing the random field amplitude. An equivalent representation of the model in terms of spinless fermions explains the presence of the delocalized phase by the appearance of an effective non-local interaction between the fermions. This interaction appears due to frustration pr…
We study many-body localization (MBL) in a pair-hopping model exhibiting strong fragmentation of the Hilbert space. We show that several Krylov subspaces have both ergodic statistics in the thermodynamic limit and a dimension that scales much slower than the full Hilbert space, but still exponentially. Such a property allows us to study the MBL phase transition in systems including more than $50$ spins. The different Krylov spaces that we consider show clear signatures of a many-body localization transition, both in the Kullback-Leibler divergence of the distribution of their level spacing rat…
We introduce a semi-classical limit for many-body localization in the absence of global symmetries. Microscopically, this limit is realized by disordered Floquet circuits composed of Clifford gates. In $d=1$, the resulting dynamics are always many-body localized with a complete set of strictly local integrals of motion. In $d\geq 2$, the system realizes both localized and delocalized phases separated by a continuous transition in which ergodic puddles percolate. We argue that the phases are stable to deformations away from the semi-classical limit and estimate the resulting phase boundary. The…
The tripartite information is an observable-independent measure for scrambling and delocalization of information. Therefore one can expect that the tripartite information is a good observable-independent indicator for distinguishing between many-body localized and delocalized regimes, which we confirm for the XXZ-chain in a random field. Specifically, we find that the tripartite information signal spreads inside a lightcone that only grows logarithmically in time in the many-body localized regime similar to the entanglement entropy. We also find that the tripartite information eventually reach…
Many-body localization (MBL) addresses the absence of thermalization in interacting quantum systems, with non-ergodic high-energy eigenstates behaving as ground states, only area-law entangled. However, computing highly excited many-body eigenstates using exact methods is very challenging. Instead, we show that one can address high-energy MBL physics using ground-state methods, which are much more amenable to many efficient algorithms. We find that a localized many-body ground state of a given interacting disordered Hamiltonian $\mathcal{H}_0$ is a very good approximation for a high-energy eig…
We study the statistical and dynamical aspects of a translation-invariant Hamiltonian, without quench disorder, as an example of the manifestation of the phenomenon of many-body localization. This is characterized by the breakdown of thermalization and by information preservation of initial preparations at long times. To realize this, we use quasi-periodic long-range interactions, which are now achievable in high-finesse cavity experiments, to find evidence suggestive of a divergent time-scale in which charge inhomogeneities in the initial state survive asymptotically. This is reminiscent of a…
We study numerically the formation of entanglement clusters across the many-body localization phase transition. We observe a crossover from strong many-body entanglement in the ergodic phase to weak local correlations in the localized phase, with contiguous clusters throughout the phase diagram. Critical states close to the transition have a structure compatible with fractal or multiscale-entangled states, characterized by entanglement at multiple levels: small strongly entangled clusters are weakly entangled together to form larger clusters. The critical point therefore features subthermal en…
We study the dynamics of an interacting quantum spin chain under the application of a linearly increasing field. This model exhibits a type of localization known as Stark many-body localization. The dynamics shows a strong dependence on the initial conditions, indicating that the system violates the conventional ("strong") eigenstate thermalization hypothesis at any finite gradient of the field. This is contrary to reports of a numerically observed ergodic phase. Therefore, the localization is crucially distinct from disorder-driven many-body localization, in agreement with recent predictions …
We study Anderson localization of single particles in continuous, correlated, one-dimensional disordered potentials. We show that tailored correlations can completely change the energy-dependence of the localization length. By considering two suitable models of disorder, we explicitly show that disorder correlations can lead to a nonmonotonic behavior of the localization length versus energy. Numerical calculations performed within the transfer-matrix approach and analytical calculations performed within the phase formalism up to order three show excellent agreement and demonstrate the effect.…
We study the many-body localization of spin chain systems with quasiperiodic fields. We identify the lower bound for the critical disorder necessary to drive the transition between the thermal and many-body localized phase to be $W_{cl}\sim 1.85$, based on finite-size scaling of entanglement entropy and fluctuations of the bipartite magnetization. We also examine the time evolution of the entanglement entropy of an initial product state where we find power-law and logarithmic growth for the thermal and many-body localized phases, respectively. For larger disorder strength, both imbalance and s…
We review recent developments in the study of out-of-equilibrium topological states of matter in isolated systems. The phenomenon of many-body localization, exhibited by some isolated systems usually in the presence of quenched disorder, prevents systems from equilibrating to a thermal state where the delicate quantum correlations necessary for topological order are often washed out. Instead, many-body localized systems can exhibit a type of eigenstate phase structure wherein their entire many-body spectrum is characterized by various types of quantum order, usually restricted to quantum groun…
We study the phenomenon of many-body localization (MBL) in an interacting system subjected to a combined DC as well as a square wave AC electric field. First, the condition for the dynamical localization, coherent destruction of Wannier-Stark localization and super Bloch oscillations in the non-interacting limit, are obtained semi-classically. In the presence of interactions (and a confining/disordered potential), a static field alone leads to "Stark many-body localization", for sufficiently large field strengths. We find that in the presence of an additional high-frequency AC field, there are…
We study the level statistics of a generalized Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model with two-body and one-body random interactions of finite range by exact diagonalization. Tuning the range of the one-body term, while keeping the two-body interaction sufficiently long-ranged, does not alter substantially the spectral correlations, which are still given by the random matrix prediction typical of a quantum chaotic system. However a transition to an insulating state, characterized by Poisson statistics, is observed by reducing the range of the two-body interaction. Close to the many-body metal-insulator…
The article reviews the physics of Anderson localization on random regular graphs (RRG) and its connections to many-body localization (MBL) in disordered interacting systems. Properties of eigenstate and energy level correlations in delocalized and localized phases, as well at criticality, are discussed. In the many-body part, models with short-range and power-law interactions are considered, as well as the quantum-dot model representing the limit of the "most long-range" interaction. Central themes -- which are common to the RRG and MBL problems -- include ergodicity of the delocalized phase,…
We show that, in contrast to immediate intuition, Anderson localization of noninteracting particles induced by a disordered potential in free space can increase (i.e., the localization length can decrease) when the particle energy increases, for appropriately tailored disorder correlations. We predict the effect in one, two, and three dimensions, and propose a simple method to observe it using ultracold atoms placed in optical disorder. The increase of localization with the particle energy can serve to discriminate quantum versus classical localization.
We study entanglement dynamics in a diagonal dephasing model in which the strength of interaction decays exponentially with distance -- the so-called l-bit model of many-body localization. We calculate the exact expression for entanglement growth with time, finding in addition to a logarithmic growth, a sublogarithmic correction. Provided the l-bit picture correctly describes the many-body localized phase this implies that the entanglement in such systems does not grow (just) as a logarithm of time, as believed so far.
We study effects of disorder on eigenstates of 1D two-component fermions with infinitely strong Hubbard repulsion. We demonstrate that the spin-independent (potential) disorder reduces the problem to the one-particle Anderson localization taking place at arbitrarily weak disorder. In contrast, a random magnetic field can cause reentrant many-body localization-delocalization transitions. Surprisingly weak magnetic field destroys one-particle localization caused by not too strong potential disorder, whereas at much stronger fields the states are many-body localized. We present numerical support …
We study the localization problem of one-dimensional interacting spinless fermions in an incommensurate optical lattice, which changes from an extended phase to a nonergoic many-body localized phase by increasing the strength of the incommensurate potential. We identify that there exists an intermediate regime before the system enters the many-body localized phase, in which both the localized and extended many-body states coexist, thus the system is divided into three different phases, which can be characterized by normalized participation ratios of the many-body eigenstates and distributions …
These are lecture notes based on three lectures given by Antonello Scardicchio at the December 2016 Topical School on Many-Body-Localization organized by the Statistical Physics Group of the Institute Jean Lamour in Nancy. They were compiled and put in a coherent logical form by Thimothée Thiery.
We study the combined effect of quasiperiodic disorder, driven and interaction in the periodically kicked Aubry-André model. In the non-interacting limit, by analyzing the quasienergy spectrum statistics, we verify the existence of a dynamical localization transition in the high-frequency region, whereas the spectrum statistics becomes intricate in the low-frequency region due to the emergence of the extended/localized-to-multifractal edges in the quasienergy spectrum, which separate the multifractal states from the extended (localized) states. When the interaction is introduced, we find the p…
We analyze functionals that characterize the distribution of eigenstates in Fock space through a tool derived from algebraic topology: persistent homology. Drawing on recent generalizations of the localization landscape applicable to mid-spectrum eigenstates, we introduce several novel persistent homology observables in the context of many-body localization that exhibit transitional behavior near the critical point. We demonstrate that the persistent homology approach to localization landscapes and, in general, functionals on the Fock space lattice offer insights into the structure of eigensta…
We construct an analytic theory of many-body localization (MBL) in random spin chains. The approach is based on a first quantized perspective in which MBL is understood as a localization phenomenon on the high dimensional lattice defined by the discrete Hilbert space of the clean system. We construct a field theory on that lattice and apply it to discuss the stability of a weak disorder (`Wigner-Dyson') and a strong disorder (`Poisson') phase.
We provide a simple and predictive random-matrix framework that naturally generalizes Page's law for ergodic many-body systems by incorporating a finite entanglement localization length. By comparing a highly structured one-dimensional model to a completely unstructured model and a physical system, we uncover a remarkable degree of universality, suggesting that the effective localization length is a universal combination of model parameters up until it drops down to the microscopic scale.
In contrast with Anderson localization where a genuine localization is observed in real space, the many-body localization (MBL) problem is much less understood in the Hilbert space, support of the eigenstates. In this work, using exact diagonalization techniques we address the ergodicity properties in the underlying ${\cal{N}}$-dimensional complex networks spanned by various computational bases for up to $L=24$ spin-1/2 particles (i.e. Hilbert space of size ${\cal{N}}\simeq 2.7\,10^6$). We report fully ergodic eigenstates in the delocalized phase (irrespective of the computational basis), whil…
The impact of geometry on many body localization is studied on simple, exemplary systems amenable to exact diagonalization treatment. The crossover between ergodic and MBL phase for uniform as well as quasi-random disorder is analyzed using statistics of energy levels. It is observed that the transition to many-body localized phase is correlated with the number of nearest coupled neighbors. The crossover from extended to localized systems is approximately described by the so called plasma model.
We study many-body localization for a disordered chain of spin 1/2 fermions. In [Phys. Rev. B \textbf{94}, 241104 (2016)], when both down and up components are exposed to the same strong disorder, the authors observe a power law growth of the entanglement entropy that suggests that many-body localization is not complete; the density (charge) degree of freedom is localized, while the spin degree of freedom is apparently delocalized. We show that this power-like behavior is only a transient effect and that, for longer times, the growth is logarithmic in time suggesting that the spin degree of fr…
Study how quantum information propagates through spacetime manifold provides a means of identifying, distinguishing, and classifying novel phases of matter fertilized by many-body effects in strongly interacting systems in and out of equilibrium. Via a fuller characterization of key aspects regarding dynamic behaviors of information, we perform such an analysis on constrained many-body localization -- a newly proposed fully localized state under infinite-interaction limit -- in quasirandom Rydberg blockade spin chain models using thermal out-of-time-order commutators (OTOCs). The OTOC light co…
One challenge of studying the many-body localization transition is defining the length scale that diverges upon the transition to the ergodic phase. In this manuscript we explore the localization properties of a ring with onsite disorder subject to an imaginary magnetic flux. We connect the imaginary flux which delocalizes single-particle orbitals of an Anderson-localized ring with the localization length of an open chain. We thus identify the delocalizing imaginary flux per site with the inverse localization length. We put this intuition to use by exploring the phase diagram of a disordered i…
We study the many-body localization (MBL) properties of a chain of interacting fermions subject to a quasiperiodic potential such that the non-interacting chain is always delocalized and displays multifractality. Contrary to naive expectations, adding interactions in this systems does not enhance delocalization, and a MBL transition is observed. Due to the local properties of the quasiperiodic potential, the MBL phase presents specific features, such as additional peaks in the density distribution. We furthermore investigate the fate of multifractality in the ergodic phase for low potential va…
We study the breaking of ergodicity measured in terms of return probability in the evolution of a quantum state of a spin chain. In the non ergodic phase a quantum state evolves in a much smaller fraction of the Hilbert space than would be allowed by the conservation of extensive observables. By the anomalous scaling of the participation ratios with system size we are led to consider the distribution of the wave function coefficients, a standard observable in modern studies of Anderson localization. We finally present a criterion for the identification of the ergodicity breaking (many-body loc…
We numerically study the possibility of many-body localization transition in a disordered quantum dimer model on the honeycomb lattice. By using the peculiar constraints of this model and state-of-the-art exact diagonalization and time evolution methods, we probe both eigenstates and dynamical properties and conclude on the existence of a localization transition, on the available time and length scales (system sizes of up to N=108 sites). We critically discuss these results and their implications.
We propose to apply spin noise spectroscopy (SNS) to detect many-body localization (MBL) in disordered spin systems. The SNS methods are relatively non-invasive technique to probe spontaneous spin fluctuations. We here show that the spin noise signals obtained by cross-correlation SNS with two probe beams can be used to separate the MBL phase from a noninteracting Anderson localized phase and a delocalized (diffusive) phase in the studied models for which we numerically calculate real time spin noise signals and their power spectra. For the archetypical case of the disordered XXZ spin chain we…
One fundamental assumption in statistical physics is that generic closed quantum many-body systems thermalize under their own dynamics. Recently, the emergence of many-body localized systems has questioned this concept, challenging our understanding of the connection between statistical physics and quantum mechanics. Here we report on the observation of a many-body localization transition between thermal and localized phases for bosons in a two-dimensional disordered optical lattice. With our single site resolved measurements we track the relaxation dynamics of an initially prepared out-of-equ…
We study the remanent magnetization in antiferromagnetic, many-body localized quantum spin chains, initialized in a fully magnetized state. Its long time limit is an order parameter for the localization transition, which is readily accessible by standard experimental probes in magnets. We analytically calculate its value in the strong-disorder regime exploiting the explicit construction of quasi-local conserved quantities of the localized phase. We discuss analogies in cold atomic systems.
A periodically driven rotor is a prototypical model that exhibits a transition to chaos in the classical regime and dynamical localization (related to Anderson localization) in the quantum regime. In a recent work [Phys. Rev. B 94, 085120 (2016)], A. C. Keser et al. considered a many-body generalization of coupled quantum kicked rotors, and showed that in the special integrable linear case, dynamical localization survives interactions. By analogy with many-body localization, the phenomenon was dubbed dynamical many-body localization. In the present work, we study nonintegrable models of single…
We study many-body localization (MBL) and delocalization from the perspective of integrals of motion (IOMs). MBL can be understood phenomenologically through the existence of macroscopically many localized IOMs. However, IOMs exist for all many-body systems, and non-localized IOMs determine properties on the ergodic side of the MBL transition too. Here we explore their properties using our method of displacement transformations. We show how different quantities can be calculated using the IOMs as an expansion in the number of operators. For all values of disorder the typical IOMs are localized…
The presence of frozen uncorrelated random on-site potential in interacting quantum systems can induce a transition from an ergodic phase to a localized one, the so-called many-body localization. Here we numerically study the effects of auto-correlated disorder on the static and dynamical properties of a one-dimensional many-body quantum system which exhibits many-body localization. Specifically, by means of some standard measures of energy level repulsion and localization of energy eigenstates, we show that a strong degree of correlations between the on-site potentials in the one-dimensional …
We study a one-dimensional (1d) XXZ spin-chain in a random field on the metallic side of the many-body localization transition by level statistics. For a fixed interaction, and intermediate disorder below the many-body localization transition, we find that, asymptotically, the number variance grows faster than linear with a disorder dependent exponent. This is consistent with the existence of an anomlaous Thouless energy in the spectrum. In non-interacting disordered metals this is an energy scale related to the typical time for a particle to diffuse across the sample. In the interacting case …
We experimentally observe many-body localization of interacting fermions in a one-dimensional quasi-random optical lattice. We identify the many-body localization transition through the relaxation dynamics of an initially-prepared charge density wave. For sufficiently weak disorder the time evolution appears ergodic and thermalizing, erasing all remnants of the initial order. In contrast, above a critical disorder strength a significant portion of the initial ordering persists, thereby serving as an effective order parameter for localization. The stationary density wave order and the critical …
Motivated by a recent optical-lattice experiment by Choi et al.[Science 352, 1547 (2016)], we discuss how domain-wall melting can be used to investigate many-body localization. First, by considering noninteracting fermion models, we demonstrate that experimentally accessible measures are sensitive to localization and can thus be used to detect the delocalization-localization transition, including divergences of characteristic length scales. Second, using extensive time-dependent density matrix renormalization group simulations, we study fermions with repulsive interactions on a chain and a two…
Spectral statistics of disordered systems encode Thouless and Heisenberg time scales whose ratio determines whether the system is chaotic or localized. Identifying similarities between system size and disorder strength scaling of Thouless time for disordered quantum many-body systems with results for 3D and 5D Anderson models, we argue that the two-parameter scaling breaks down in the vicinity of the transition to the localized phase signalling subdiffusive dynamics.
Effects of heterogeneity in the suspected-infected-susceptible model on networks are investigated using quenched mean-field theory. The emergence of localization is described by the distributions of the inverse participation ratio and compared with the rare-region effects appearing in simulations and in the Lifschitz tails. The latter, in the linear approximation, is related to the spectral density of the Laplacian matrix and to the time dependent order parameter. I show that these approximations indicate correctly Griffiths Phases both on regular one-dimensional lattices and on small world ne…
We use exact diagonalization to explore the many-body localization transition in a random-field spin-1/2 chain. We examine the correlations within each many-body eigenstate, looking at all high-energy states and thus effectively working at infinite temperature. For weak random field the eigenstates are thermal, as expected in this nonlocalized, "ergodic" phase. For strong random field the eigenstates are localized, with only short-range entanglement. We roughly locate the localization transition and examine some of its finite-size scaling, finding that this quantum phase transition at nonzero …
Ergodicity in quantum many-body systems is - despite its fundamental importance - still an open problem. Many-body localization provides a general framework for quantum ergodicity, and may therefore offer important insights. However, the characterization of many-body localization through simple observables is a difficult task. In this article, we introduce a measure for distances in Hilbert space for spin-1/2 systems that can be interpreted as a generalization of the Anderson localization length to the many-body Hilbert space. We show that this many-body localization length is equivalent to a …
We consider spinless fermions on a finite one-dimensional lattice, interacting via nearest-neighbor repulsion and subject to a strong electric field. In the non-interacting case, due to Wannier-Stark localization, the single-particle wave functions are exponentially localized even though the model has no quenched disorder. We show that this system remains localized in the presence of interactions and exhibits physics analogous to models of conventional many-body localization (MBL). In particular, the entanglement entropy grows logarithmically with time after a quench, albeit with a slightly di…
Recent theoretical and numerical evidence suggests that localization can survive in disordered many-body systems with very high energy density, provided that interactions are sufficiently weak. Stronger interactions can destroy localization, leading to a so-called many-body localization transition. This dynamical phase transition is relevant to questions of thermalization in extended quantum systems far from the zero-temperature limit. It separates a many-body localized phase, in which localization prevents transport and thermalization, from a conducting ("ergodic") phase in which the usual as…
Inspired by recent experiments on many-body localized systems coupled to an environment, we apply a Flow Equation method to study the problem of a disorder chain of spinless fermions, coupled via density-density interactions to a second clean chain of spinless fermions. In particular, we focus on the conditions for the onset of a many-body localized phase in the clean sector of our model by proximity to the dirty one. We find that a many-body localization proximity effect in the clean component is established when the density of dirty fermions exceeds a threshold value. From the flow equation …
In one dimension, noninteracting particles can undergo a localization-delocalization transition in a quasiperiodic potential. Recent studies have suggested that this transition transforms into a many-body localization (MBL) transition upon the introduction of interactions. It has also been shown that mobility edges can appear in the single particle spectrum for certain types of quasiperiodic potentials. Here, we investigate the effect of interactions in two models with such mobility edges. Employing the technique of exact diagonalization for finite-sized systems, we calculate the level spacing…
We theoretically study correlations present deep in the spectrum of many-body-localized systems. An exact analytical expression for the spectral form factor of Poisson spectra can be obtained and is shown to agree well with numerical results on two models exhibiting many-body-localization: a disordered quantum spin chain and a phenomenological $l$-bit model based on the existence of local integrals of motion. We also identify a universal regime that is insensitive to the global density of states as well as spectral edge effects.
Despite tremendous theoretical efforts to understand subtleties of the many-body localization (MBL) transition, many questions remain open, in particular concerning its critical properties. Here we make the key observation that MBL in one dimension is accompanied by a spin freezing mechanism which causes chain breakings in the thermodynamic limit. Using analytical and numerical approaches, we show that such chain breakings directly probe the typical localization length, and that their scaling properties at the MBL transition agree with the Kosterlitz-Thouless scenario predicted by phenomenolog…
