We study disorder-induced ergodicity breaking transition in high-energy eigenstates of interacting spin-1/2 chains. Using exact diagonalization we introduce a cost function approach to quantitatively compare different scenarios for the eigenstate transition. We study ergodicity indicators such as the eigenstate entanglement entropy and the spectral level spacing ratio, and we consistently find that an (infinite-order) Kosterlitz-Thouless transition yields a lower cost function when compared to a finite-order transition. Interestingly, we observe that the transition point in finite systems exhibits nearly thermal properties, i.e., ergodicity indicators at the transition are close to the random matrix theory predictions.
It is of great current interest to establish toy models of ergodicity breaking transitions in quantum many-body systems. Here we study a model that is expected to exhibit an ergodic to nonergodic transition in the thermodynamic limit upon tuning the coupling between an ergodic quantum dot and distant particles with spin-1/2. The model is effectively zero dimensional, however, a variant of the model was proposed by De Roeck and Huveneers to describe the avalanche mechanism of ergodicity breaking transition in one-dimensional disordered spin chains. We show that exact numerical results based on …
We consider a chain of interacting fermions with random disorder that was intensively studied in the context of many-body localization. We show that only a small fraction of the two-body interaction represents a true local perturbation to the Anderson insulator. While this true perturbation is nonzero at any finite disorder strength W, it decreases with increasing W. This establishes a view that the strongly disordered system should be viewed as a weakly perturbed integrable model, i.e., a weakly perturbed Anderson insulator. As a consequence, the latter can hardly be distinguished from a stri…
We present here for the first time a unifying perspective for the lack of equipartition in non-linear ordered systems and the low temperature phase-space fragmentation in disordered systems. We demonstrate that they are just two manifestation of the same underlying phenomenon: ergodicity breaking. Inspired by recent experiments, suggesting that lasing in optically active disordered media is related to an ergodicity-breaking transition, we studied numerically a statistical mechanics model for the nonlinearly coupled light modes in a disordered medium under external pumping. Their collective beh…
We show how U(1) lattice gauge theories display key signatures of ergodicity breaking in the presence of a random charge background. Contrary to the widely studied case of spin models, in the presence of Coulomb interactions, the spectral properties of such lattice gauge theories are very weakly affected by finite-volume effects. This allows to draw a sharp boundary for the ergodic regime, and thus the breakdown of quantum chaos for sufficiently strong gauge couplings, at the system sizes accessible via exact diagonalization. Our conclusions are independent on the value of a background topolog…
We discuss ergodicity breaking in frustrated disordered systems with no apparent broken symmetry of the Hamiltonian and present a way how to amend it in the low-temperature phase. We demonstrate this phenomenon on mean-field models of spin glasses. We use replicas of the spin variables to test thermodynamic homogeneity of ergodic equilibrium systems. We show that replica-symmetry breaking reflects ergodicity breaking and is used to restore an ergodic state. We then present explicit asymptotic solutions for the Ising, Potts and $p$-spin glasses. Each of the models shows a different low-temperat…
We directly detect the ergodicity breaking in a lattice glass model by a numerical simulation. The obtained results nicely agree with those by the cavity method that the model on a regular random graph exhibits a dynamical transition with the ergodicity breaking at an occupation density. The present method invented for a numerical detection of the ergodicity breaking is applicable to glassy systems in finite dimensions.
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…
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 …
Many-body ergodicity breaking from wavefunction snapshots
International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA)（国际高等研究学院）；The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)（阿卜杜勒·萨拉姆理论物理国际中心）；Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Bologna（博洛尼亚大学物理与天文学系）；INFN, Sezione di Bologna（意大利国家核物理研究所博洛尼部分所）；J. Stefan Institute（约热·斯特凡研究所）；University of Ljubljana（卢布尔雅那大学）；Wrocław University of Science and Technology（弗罗茨瓦夫理工大学）
Quantum systems that violate the eigenstate thermalisation hypothesis thereby falling outside the paradigm of conventional statistical mechanics are of both intellectual and practical interest. We show that such a breaking of ergodicity may arise purely due to local constraints on random many-body Hamiltonians. As an example, we study an ergodic quantum spin-1/2 model which acquires a localised phase upon addition of East-type constraints. We establish its phenomenology using spectral and dynamical properties obtained by exact diagonalisation. Mapping the Hamiltonian to a disordered hopping pr…
The emergence of self-sustained clusters and their role in ergodicity breaking is investigated in fully connected Ising and Sherrington-Kirkpatick (SK) models. The analysis reveals a clustering behavior at various parameter regimes, as well as yet unobserved phenomena such as the absence of non-trivial clusters in the Ising ferromagnetic and paramagnetic regimes, the formation of restricted spin clusters in SK spin glass and a first order phase transition in cluster sizes in the SK ferromagnet. The method could be adapted to investigate other spin models.
The supersymmetry self-consistent approximation for the model of non-equilibrium thermodynamic system with quenched disorder is derived from the dynamical action calculated by means of generalized second Legendre transformation. The equations for adiabatic and isothermal susceptibilities, memory and field induced parameters are obtained on the basis of asymptotic analysis of dynamical Dyson equations. It is shown that the marginal stability condition that defines the critical point is governed by fluctuations violating FDT. The temperature of ergodicity breaking transition is calculated as a f…
In this work we address the nature of broken ergodicity in the low temperature phase of Ising spin glasses by examining spectral properties of spin correlation functions $C_{ij}\equiv< S_i S_j>$. We argue that more than one extensive (i.e., O(N)) eigenvalue in this matrix signals replica symmetry breaking. Monte-Carlo simulations of the infinite-range Ising spin-glass model, above and below the Almeida-Thouless line, support this conclusion. Exchange Monte-Carlo simulations for the short-range model in four dimensions find a single extensive eigenvalue and a large subdominant eigenvalue consis…
Many-body localization (MBL) behavior is analyzed {in an extended Bose-Hubbard model with quasiperiodic infinite-range interactions. No additional disorder is present. Examining level statistics and entanglement entropy of eigenstates we show that a significant fraction of eigenstates of the system is localized in the presence of strong interactions. In spite of this, our results suggest that the system becomes ergodic in the standard thermodynamic limit in which the energy of the system is extensive. At the same time, the MBL regime seems to be stable if one allows for a super-extensive scali…
Out of equilibrium relaxation processes show aging if they become slower as time passes. Aging processes are ubiquitous and play a fundamental role in the physics of glasses and spin glasses and in other applications (e.g. in algorithms minimizing complex cost/loss functions). The theory of aging in the out of equilibrium dynamics of mean-field spin glass models has achieved a fundamental role, thanks to the asymptotic analytic solution found by Cugliandolo and Kurchan. However this solution is based on assumptions (e.g. the weak ergodicity breaking hypothesis) which have never been put under …
We study disorder-free many-body localization in the flat-band Creutz ladder, which was recently realized in cold-atoms in an optical lattice. In a non-interacting case, the flat-band structure of the system leads to a Wannier wavefunction localized on four adjacent lattice sites. In the flat-band regime both with and without interactions, the level spacing analysis exhibits Poisson-like distribution indicating the existence of disorder-free localization. Calculations of the inverse participation ratio support this observation. Interestingly, this type of localization is robust to weak disorde…
Continuous-time random walk (CTRW) is a model of anomalous sub-diffusion in which particles are immobilized for random times between successive jumps. A power-law distribution of the waiting times, $ψ(τ) τ^{-(1+α)}$, leads to sub-diffusion ($<x^2>~t^α$) for 0<α<1. In closed systems, the long stagnation periods cause time-averages to divert from the corresponding ensemble averages, which is a manifestation of weak ergodicity breaking. The time-average of a general observable $\bar{U} = \int_0^t U[x(τ)]dτ/ t$ is a functional of the path and is described by the well known Feynman-Kac equation if …
The temperature dependence of the non-ergodicity factor of vitreous GeO$_2$, $f_{q}(T)$, as deduced from elastic and quasi-elastic neutron scattering experiments, is analyzed. The data are collected in a wide range of temperatures from the glassy phase, up to the glass transition temperature, and well above into the undercooled liquid state. Notwithstanding the investigated system is classified as prototype of strong glass, it is found that the temperature- and the $q$-behavior of $f_{q}(T)$ follow some of the predictions of Mode Coupling Theory. The experimental data support the hypothesis of…
The diagonal ensemble is the infinite time average of a quantum state following unitary dynamics. In analogy to the time average of a classical phase space dynamics, it is intimately related to the ergodic properties of the quantum system giving information on the spreading of the initial state in the eigenstates of the Hamiltonian. In this work we apply a concept from quantum information, known as total correlations, to the diagonal ensemble. Forming an upper-bound on the multipartite entanglement, it quantifies the combination of both classical and quantum correlations in a mixed state. We g…
Using generating functional and replica techniques, respectively, we study the dynamics and statics of a spherical Minority Game (MG), which in contrast with a spherical MG previously presented in J.Phys A: Math. Gen. 36 11159 (2003) displays a phase with broken ergodicity and dependence of the macroscopic stationary state on initial conditions. The model thus bears more similarity with the original MG. Still, all order parameters including the volatility can computed in the ergodic phases without making any approximations. We also study the effects of market impact correction on the phase dia…
Strongly disordered systems in the many-body localized (MBL) phase can exhibit ground state order in highly excited eigenstates. The interplay between localization, symmetry, and topology has led to the characterization of a broad landscape of MBL phases ranging from spin glasses and time crystals to symmetry protected topological phases. Understanding the nature of phase transitions between these different forms of eigenstate order remains an essential open question. Here, we conjecture that no direct transition between distinct MBL orders can occur; rather, a thermal phase always intervenes.…
We performed a series of aging experiments of an inorganic glass (As${_2}$Se${_3}$) at a temperature ${T_2}$ near the glass transition point ${T_g}$ by first relaxing it at ${T_1}$. The relaxation of Young's modulus was monitored, which was(almost if not ideally) exponential with a ${T_1}$-dependent relaxation time ${τ(T_1)}$. We demostrate the Kovacs' paradox for the first time in an inorganic glasses. Associated with the divergence of $τ$, the quasi-equilibrated Young's modulus ${E_\infty}$ does not converge either. An elastic model of relaxation time and a Mori-Tanaka analysis of ${E_\infty…
The Langevin dynamics of a self - interacting chain embedded in a quenched random medium is investigated by making use of the generating functional method and one - loop (Hartree) approximation. We have shown how this intrinsic disorder causes different dynamical regimes. Namely, within the Rouse characteristic time interval the anomalous diffusion shows up. The corresponding subdiffusional dynamical exponents have been explicitly calculated and thoroughly discussed. For the larger time interval the disorder drives the center of mass of the chain to a trap or frozen state provided that the Har…
Building on large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate the zero-temperature phase diagram of hard-core bosons in a random potential on site-centered Cayley trees with branching number $K=2$. In order to follow how the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is affected by the disorder, we focus on both the zero-momentum density, probing the quantum coherence, and the one-body density matrix (1BDM) whose largest eigenvalue monitors the off-diagonal long-range order. We further study its associated eigenstate which brings useful information about the real-space properties of this leading…
Characterizing states of matter through the lens of their ergodic properties is a fascinating new direction of research. In the quantum realm, the many-body localization (MBL) was proposed to be the paradigmatic ergodicity breaking phenomenon, which extends the concept of Anderson localization to interacting systems. At the same time, random matrix theory has established a powerful framework for characterizing the onset of quantum chaos and ergodicity (or the absence thereof) in quantum many-body systems. Here we numerically study the spectral statistics of disordered interacting spin chains, …
We investigate the relation between spontaneous and explicit replica symmetry breaking in the theory of disordered systems. On general ground, we prove the equivalence between the replicon operator associated with the stability of the replica symmetric solution in the standard replica scheme and the operator signaling a breakdown of the solution with analytic field dependence in a scheme in which replica symmetry is explicitly broken by applied sources. This opens the possibility to study, via the recently developed functional renormalization group, unresolved questions related to spontaneous …
We show that non-interacting disordered electrons on a Bethe lattice display a new intermediate phase which is delocalized but non-ergodic, i.e. it is characterized by Poisson instead of GOE statistics. The physical signature of this phase is a very heterogenous transport that proceeds over a few disorder dependent paths only. We show that the transition to the usual ergodic delocalized phase, which takes place for a disorder strength smaller than the one leading to the localization transition, is related to the freezing-glass transition of directed polymers in random media. The numerical stud…
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 consider a disordered Hubbard model, and show that, at sufficiently weak disorder, a single spin-down mobile impurity can thermalize an extensive initially localized system of spin-up particles. Thermalization is enabled by resonant processes which involve correlated hops of the impurity and localized particles. This effect indicates that certain localized insulators behave as "supercooled" systems, with mobile impurities acting as ergodic seeds. We provide analytical estimates, supported by numerical exact diagonalization (ED), showing how the critical disorder strength for such mechanism …
We study the many-body localization transition in one-dimensional Hubbard chains using exact diagonalization and quantum chaos indicators. We also study dynamics in the delocalized (ergodic) and localized phases and discuss thermalization and eigenstate thermalization, or the lack thereof, in such systems. Consistently within the indicators and observables studied, we find that ergodicity is very robust against disorder, namely, even in the presence of weak Hubbard interactions the disorder strength needed for the system to localize is large. We show that this robustness might be hidden by fin…
We present a new method to study disordered systems in the low temperature limit. The method uses the replicated Hamiltonian. It studies the saddle points of this Hamiltonian and shows how the various saddle point contributions can be resummed in order to obtain the scaling behaviour at low temperatures. In a large class of strongly disordered systems, it is necessary to include saddle points of the Hamiltonian which break the replica symmetry in a vector sector, as opposed to the usual matrix sector breaking of spin glass mean field theory.
Theoretical studies of localization, anomalous diffusion and ergodicity breaking require solving the electronic structure of disordered systems. We use free probability to approximate the ensemble- averaged density of states without exact diagonalization. We present an error analysis that quantifies the accuracy using a generalized moment expansion, allowing us to distinguish between different approximations. We identify an approximation that is accurate to the eighth moment across all noise strengths, and contrast this with the perturbation theory and isotropic entanglement theory.
We derive exact probability distributions for the strain ($ε$) at which the first stress drop event occurs in uniformly strained disordered crystals, with quenched disorder introduced through polydispersity in particle sizes. We characterize these first stress drop events numerically as well as theoretically, and identify them with the first contact breaking event in the system. Our theoretical results are corroborated with numerical simulations of quasistatic volumetric strain applied to disordered near-crystalline configurations of athermal soft particles. We develop a general technique to d…
In globally coupled oscillators, it is believed that strong higher harmonics of coupling functions are essential for multibranch entrainment (MBE), in which there exist many stable states, whose number scales as $\sim$ $O(\exp N)$ (where N is the system size). The existence of MBE implies the non-ergodicity of the system. Then, because this apparent breaking of ergodicity is caused by microscopic energy barriers, this seems to be in conflict with a basic principle of statistical physics. In this paper, using macroscopic dynamical theories, we demonstrate that there is no such ergodicity breaki…
A field-theory approach is used to investigate the ''spin-glass effects'' on the critical behaviour of systems with weak temperature-like quenched disorder. The renormalization group (RG) analysis of the effective Hamiltonian of a model with replica symmetry breaking (RSB) potentials of a general type is carried out in the two-loop approximation. The fixed-point (FP) stability, recently found within the one-step RSB RG treatment, is further explored in terms of replicon eigenvalues. We find that the traditional FPs, which are usually considered to describe the disorder-induced universal critic…
We prove that the variance of spin overlap vanishes in disordered Ising models satisfying the Fortuin-Kasteleyn-Ginibre (FKG) inequality under a uniform field, such as generally distributed random field Ising model, site- and bond-diluted Ising models with the Bernoulli distribution. Chatterjee's proof for the Gaussian random field Ising model is generalized to other independent identically distributed quenched disorder under a uniform field.
Molecular transport in living systems regulates numerous processes underlying biological function. Although many cellular components exhibit anomalous diffusion, only recently has the subdiffusive motion been associated with nonergodic behavior. These findings have stimulated new questions for their implications in statistical mechanics and cell biology. Is nonergodicity a common strategy shared by living systems? Which physical mechanisms generate it? What are its implications for biological function? Here, we use single particle tracking to demonstrate that the motion of DC-SIGN, a receptor …
A field-theoretic description of the critical behaviour of the weakly disordered systems is given. Directly, for three- and two-dimensional systems a renormalization analysis of the effective Hamiltonian of model with replica symmetry breaking (RSB) potentials is carried out in the two-loop approximation. For case with 1-step RSB the fixed points (FP's) corresponding to stability of the various types of critical behaviour are identified with the use of the Pade-Borel summation technique. Analysis of FP's has shown a stability of the critical behaviour of the weakly disordered systems with resp…
We analyze the localization properties of the disordered Hubbard model in the presence of a synthetic magnetic field. An analysis of level spacing ratio shows a clear transition from ergodic to many-body localized phase. The transition shifts to larger disorder strengths with increasing magnetic flux. Study of dynamics of local correlations and entanglement entropy indicates that charge excitations remain localized whereas spin degree of freedom gets delocalized in the presence of the synthetic flux. This residual ergodicity is enhanced by the presence of the magnetic field with dynamical obse…
Fermionic magic resources in disordered quantum spin chains
Szkoła Doktorska Nauk Ścisłych i Przyrodniczych, Uniwersytet Jagielloński（雅盖隆大学自然科学博士学院）；Instytut Fizyki Teoretycznej, Wydział Fizyki, Astronomii i Informatyki Stosowanej, Uniwersytet Jagielloński（雅盖隆大学物理、天文学与应用信息学系理论物理研究所）；Mark Kac Complex Systems Research Center, Uniwersytet Jagielloński（雅盖隆大学马克·卡克复杂系统研究中心）；Barcelona Supercomputing Center（巴塞罗那超级计算中心）
