Sufficient disorder is believed to localize static and periodically-driven interacting chains. With quasiperiodic driving by $D$ incommensurate tones, the fate of this many-body localization (MBL) is unknown. We argue that randomly disordered MBL exists for $D=2$, but not for $D\geq 3$. Specifically, a putative two-tone driven MBL chain is neither destabilized by thermal avalanches seeded by rare thermal regions, nor by the proliferation of long-range many-body resonances. For $D\geq 3$, however, sufficiently large thermal regions have continuous local spectra and slowly thermalize the entire chain. En route, we generalize the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis to the quasiperiodically-driven setting, and verify its predictions numerically. Two-tone driving enables new topological orders with edge signatures; our results suggest that localization protects these orders indefinitely.
We study the many body localization (MBL) transition for interacting fermions subject to quasiperiodic potentials by constructing the local integrals of motion (LIOMs) in the MBL phase as time-averaged local operators. We study numerically how these time-averaged operators evolve across the MBL transition. We find that the norm of such time-averaged operators drops discontinuously to zero across the transition; as we discuss, this implies that LIOMs abruptly become unstable at some critical localization length of order unity. We analyze the LIOMs using hydrodynamic projections and isolating th…
In the presence of sufficiently strong disorder or quasiperiodic fields, an interacting many-body system can fail to thermalize and become many-body localized. The associated transition is of particular interest, since it occurs not only in the ground state but over an extended range of energy densities. So far, theoretical studies of the transition have focused mainly on the case of true-random disorder. In this work, we experimentally and numerically investigate the regime close to the many-body localization transition in quasiperiodic systems. We find slow relaxation of the density imbalanc…
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…
Probing many-body localization crossover in quasiperiodic Floquet circuits on a quantum processor
RIKEN Center for Computational Science（理化学研究所计算科学中心）；RIKEN Center for Quantum Computing（理化学研究所量子计算中心）；RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences（理化学研究所交叉理论与数学科学中心）；RIKEN Pioneering Research Institute（理化学研究所先驱研究所）；Jožef Stefan Institute（约热·斯特凡研究所）；University of Ljubljana（卢布尔雅那大学）
Quasiperiodic modulation can prevent isolated quantum systems from equilibrating by localizing their degrees of freedom. In this article, we show that such systems can exhibit dynamically stable long-range orders forbidden in equilibrium. Specifically, we show that the interplay of symmetry breaking and localization in the quasiperiodic quantum Ising chain produces a \emph{quasiperiodic Ising glass} stable at all energy densities. The glass order parameter vanishes with an essential singularity at the melting transition with no signatures in the equilibrium properties. The zero temperature pha…
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 $σ(ω)$ and the return probability $R(τ)$ 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…
In their Letter[Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 106803 (2021)], the authors found an interesting reentrant localization phenomenon in a one-dimensional dimerized lattice with quasiperiodic disorder, i.e., the system undergoes a second localization transition at a higher disorder strength. They claimed that this reentrant feature would appear in the case of staggered disorder, but not for the uniform ones. In this Comment, we show that such reentrant feature can also appear for the uniform disorder when larger system parameters are taken into account.
Systems with quasiperiodic disorder are known to exhibit localization transition in low dimension. After a critical strength of disorder all the states of the system become localized, thereby ceasing the particle motion in the system. However, in our analysis we show that in a one dimensional dimerized lattice with staggered quasiperiodic disorder, after the localization transition some of the localized eigenstates become extended for a range of intermediate disorder strengths. Eventually, the system undergoes a second localization transition at a higher disorder strength leading to all states…
Lateral Shift as a Control Knob for Localization Transitions in a Quasiperiodic Ladder
College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Ocean University of China（中国海洋大学物理与光电工程学院）；Qingdao Key Laboratory of Advanced Optoelectronics（青岛先进光电技术重点实验室）；Engineering Research Center of Advanced Marine Physical Instruments and Equipment of MOE（教育部海洋物理仪器与装备工程研究中心）；Department of Physics, National University of Singapore（新加坡国立大学物理系）；Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore（新加坡国立大学量子技术中心）；MajuLab, CNRS-UCA-SU-NUS-NTU International Joint Research Unit（马久实验室（CNRS-尼斯大学-索邦大学-新加坡国立大学-南洋理工大学国际联合研究单位））；Center for Phononics and Thermal Energy Science, China-EU Joint Lab on Nanophononics, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Special Artificial Microstructure Materials and Technology, School of Physics Science and Engineering, Tongji University（同济大学物理科学与技术学院特种人工微结构材料与技术上海市重点实验室中欧纳米声学联合实验室声子学与热能科学中心）
We investigate the topology and localization of one-dimensional Hermitian and non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chains with quasiperiodic hopping modulations. In the Hermitian case, phase diagrams are obtained by numerically and analytically calculating various topological and localization characters. We show the presence of topological extended, intermediate, and localized phases due to the coexistence of independent topological and localization phase transitions driven by the quasiperiodic disorder. Unlike the gapless and localized TAI phase in one-dimensional random disordered systems, we …
We construct an example of a 1$d$ quasiperiodically driven spin chain whose edge states can coherently store quantum information, protected by a combination of localization, dynamics, and topology. Unlike analogous behavior in static and periodically driven (Floquet) spin chains, this model does not rely upon microscopic symmetry protection: Instead, the edge states are protected purely by emergent dynamical symmetries. We explore the dynamical signatures of this Emergent Dynamical Symmetry-Protected Topological (EDSPT) order through exact numerics, time evolving block decimation, and analytic…
Precise nature of MBL transitions in both random and quasiperiodic (QP) systems remains elusive so far. In particular, whether MBL transitions in QP and random systems belong to the same universality class or two distinct ones has not been decisively resolved. Here we investigate MBL transitions in one-dimensional ($d\!=\!1$) QP systems as well as in random systems by state-of-the-art real-space renormalization group (RG) calculation. Our real-space RG shows that MBL transitions in 1D QP systems are characterized by the critical exponent $ν\!\approx\!2.4$, which respects the Harris-Luck bound …
The nature of the many-body localization (MBL) transition and even the existence of the MBL phase in random many-body quantum systems have been actively debated in recent years. In spatial dimension $d>1$, there is some consensus that the MBL phase is unstable to rare thermal inclusions that can lead to an avalanche that thermalizes the whole system. In this note, we explore the possibility of MBL in quasiperiodic systems in dimension $d>1$. We argue that (i) the MBL phase is stable at strong enough quasiperiodic modulations for $d = 2$, and (ii) the possibility of an avalanche strongly constr…
We investigate localization properties in a two-coupled uniform chains with quasiperiodic modulation on interchain coupling strength. We demonstrate that this ladder is equivalent to a Aubry-Andre (AA) chain when two legs are symmetric. Analytical and numerical results indicate the appearance of mobility edges for asymmetric ladder. We also propose an easily engineered quasiperiodic ladder system which is a moiré superlattice system consisting of two-coupled uniform chains. An irrational lattice constant difference results in quasiperiodic structure. Numerical simulations show that such a syst…
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 …
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 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 take non-Hermitian Aubry-André-Harper models and quasiperiodic Kitaev chains as examples to demonstrate the equivalence and superposition of real and imaginary quasiperiodic potentials (QPs) on inducing localization of single-particle states. We prove this equivalence by analytically computing Lyapunov exponents (or inverse of localization lengths) for systems with purely real and purely imaginary QPs. Moreover, when superposed and with the same frequency, real and imaginary QPs are coherent on inducing the localization, under a way which is determined by the relative phase between them. Th…
We investigate the localization and topological transitions in a one-dimensional (interacting) non-Hermitian quasiperiodic lattice, which is described by a generalized Aubry-André-Harper model with irrational modulations in the off-diagonal hopping and on-site potential and with non-Hermiticities from the nonreciprocal hopping and complex potential phase. For noninteracting cases, we reveal that the nonreciprocal hopping (the complex potential phase) can enlarge the delocalization (localization) region in the phase diagrams spanned by two quasiperiodical modulation strengths. We show that the …
Uncorrelated disorder potential in one-dimensional lattice definitely induces Anderson localization, while quasiperiodic potential can lead to both localized and extended phases, depending on the potential strength. We investigate the Anderson localization in one-dimensional lattice with nonHermitian complex disorder and quasiperiodic potential. We present a non-Hermitian SSH chain to demonstrate that a nonzero imaginary disorder on-site potential can induce the standard Anderson localization. We also show that the non-Hermitian Aubry-Andre (AA) model exhibits a transition in parameter space, …
Controlled Zeno-Induced Localization of Free Fermions in a Quasiperiodic Chain
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal（印度科学教育研究所博帕尔分校）；Nanyang Technological University（南洋理工大学）；National Institute of Science Education and Research（国家科学教育研究所）；Homi Bhabha National Institute（霍米·巴巴国立研究所）；University of Oxford（牛津大学）；University College London（伦敦大学学院）
We study high-temperature magnetization transport in a many-body spin-1/2 chain with on-site quasiperiodic potential governed by the Fibonacci rule. In the absence of interactions it is known that the system is critical with the transport described by a continuously varying dynamical exponent (from ballistic to localized) as a function of the on-site potential strength. Upon introducing weak interactions, we find that an anomalous noninteracting dynamical exponent becomes diffusive for any potential strength. This is borne out by a boundary-driven Lindblad dynamics as well as unitary dynamics,…
We derive a topological classification of the steady states of $d$-dimensional lattice models driven by $D$ incommensurate tones. Mapping to a unifying $(d+D)$-dimensional localized model in frequency space reveals anomalous localized topological phases (ALTPs) with no static analog. While the formal classification is determined by $d+D$, the observable signatures of each ALTP depend on the spatial dimension $d$. For each $d$, with $d+D=3$, we identify a quantized circulating current, and corresponding topological edge states. The edge states for a driven wire ($d=1$) function as a quantized, …
A re-entrant localization transition has been predicted recently in a one-dimensional quasiperiodic lattice with dimerized hopping between the nearest-neighbour sites (Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 126} 106803 (2021)) \cite{PhysRevLett.126.106803}. It has been shown that the interplay between the hopping dimerization and a staggered quasi-periodic disorder manifests two localization transitions through two intermediate phases resulting in four critical points as a function of the quasiperiodic potential. In this paper, we study the phenomenon of the re-entrant localization transition by examining the …
A one-dimensional lattice model with mosaic quasiperiodic potential is found to exhibit interesting localization properties, e.g., clear mobility edges [Y. Wang et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{125}, 196604 (2020)]. We generalize this mosaic quasiperiodic model to a two-dimensional version, and numerically investigate its localization properties: the phase diagram from the fractal dimension of the wavefunction, the statistical and scaling properties of the conductance. Compared with disordered systems, our model shares many common features but also exhibits some different characteristics in th…
We consider a quantum particle in a one-dimensional disordered lattice with Anderson localization, in the presence of multi-frequency perturbations of the onsite energies. Using the Floquet representation, we transform the eigenvalue problem into a Wannier-Stark basis. Each frequency component contributes either to a single channel or a multi-channel connectivity along the lattice, depending on the control parameters. The single channel regime is essentially equivalent to the undriven case. The multi-channel driving substantially increases the localization length for slow driving, showing two …
Whether disordered and quasiperiodic many-body quantum systems host a long-lived localized phase in the thermodynamic limit has been the subject of intense recent debate. While in one dimension substantial evidence for the existence of such a many-body localized (MBL) phase exists, the behavior in higher dimensions remains an open puzzle. In two-dimensional disordered systems, for instance, it has been argued that rare regions may lead to thermalization of the whole system through a mechanism dubbed the avalanche instability. In quasiperiodic systems, rare regions are altogether absent and the…
Anomalous mobility edges and extended-localized transition in a quasiperiodic emitter-cavity array
School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering & Institute of Theoretical Physics, Ludong University（鲁东大学物理与光电工程学院暨理论物理研究所）；Center for Quantum Sciences, Northeast Normal University（东北师范大学量子科学中心）
We study many-body localization (MBL) for interacting one-dimensional lattice fermions in random (Anderson) and quasiperiodic (Aubry-Andre) models, focusing on the role of interaction range. We obtain the MBL quantum phase diagrams by calculating the experimentally relevant inverse participation ratio (IPR) at half-filling using exact diagonalization methods and extrapolating to the infinite system size. For short-range interactions, our results produce in the phase diagram a qualitative symmetry between weak and strong interaction limits. For long-range interactions, no such symmetry exists a…
Quasiperiodic systems are aperiodic but deterministic, so their critical behavior differs from that of clean systems as well as disordered ones. Quasiperiodic criticality was previously understood only in the special limit where the couplings follow discrete quasiperiodic sequences. Here we consider generic quasiperiodic modulations; we find, remarkably, that for a wide class of spin chains, generic quasiperiodic modulations flow to discrete sequences under a real-space renormalization group transformation. These discrete sequences are therefore fixed points of a \emph{functional} renormalizat…
Coupling a 1D quasiperiodic interacting system to a Markovian bath, we study the avalanche instability of the many body localized phase numerically, finding that many body localization (MBL) is more stable in pseudorandom quasiperiodic systems than the corresponding randomly disordered systems for a disorder strength $W>8$, potentially up to arbitrarily large system sizes. We support our conclusion by additionally developing real space RG arguments, and provide a detailed comparison between quasiperiodic and random MBL from the avalanche instability perspective, concluding that the two belong …
Family-Vicsek dynamical scaling and Kardar-Parisi-Zhang-like superdiffusive growth of surface roughness in a driven one-dimensional quasiperiodic model
We provide a systematic comparison of the many-body localization transition in spin chains with nonrandom quasiperiodic vs. random fields. We find evidence that these belong to two separate universality classes: one dominated by "intrinsic" intra-sample randomness, and the second dominated by external inter-sample quenched randomness. We show that the effects of inter-sample variations are strongly growing, but not yet dominant, at the system sizes probed by exact-diagonalization studies on random models. Thus, the observed finite-size critical scaling collapses in such studies appear to be in…
We study a one-dimensional system that includes both a commensurate off-diagonal modulation of the hopping amplitude and an incommensurate, slowly varying diagonal on-site modulation. By using asymptotic heuristic arguments, we identify four closed form expressions for the mobility edges. We further study numerically the inverse participation ratio, the density of states and the Lyapunov exponent. The numerical results are in exact agreement with our theoretical predictions. Besides a metal-insulator transition driven by the strength of the slowly varying potential, another four insulator-meta…
