We study the localization phenomena in a one-dimensional lattice system with a uniformly moving disordered potential. At a low moving velocity, we find a sliding localized phase in which the initially localized matter wave adiabatically follows the moving potential without diffusion, thus resulting in an initial state memory in the many-body dynamics. Such an intriguing localized phase distinguishes itself from the standard Anderson localization in two aspects: it is not robust against interaction, but persists in the presence of slowly varying perturbations. Such a sliding localized phase can be understood as a consequence of interference between the wavepacket paths under moving quasi-periodic potentials with various periods that are incommensurate with the lattice constant. The experimental realization and detection were also discussed..
We observe the emergence of a disorder-induced insulating state in a strongly interacting atomic Fermi gas trapped in an optical lattice. This closed quantum system free of a thermal reservoir realizes the disordered Fermi-Hubbard model, which is a minimal model for strongly correlated electronic solids. In measurements of disorder-induced localization obtained via mass transport, we detect interaction-driven delocalization and localization that persists as the temperature of the gas is raised. These behaviors are consistent with many-body localization, which is a novel paradigm for understand…
We evaluate the localization length of the wave (or Schroedinger) equation in the presence of a disordered speckle potential. This is relevant for experiments on cold atoms in optical speckle potentials. We focus on the limit of large disorder, where the Born approximation breaks down and derive an expression valid in the "quasi-metallic" phase at large disorder. This phase becomes strongly localized and the effective mobility edge disappears.
We study the localization properties of non-interacting waves propagating in a speckle-like potential superposed on a one-dimensional lattice. Using a decimation/renormalization procedure, we estimate the localization length for a tight-binding Hamiltonian where site-energies are square-sinc-correlated random variables. By decreasing the width of the correlation function, the disorder patterns approaches a $δ$-correlated disorder, and the localization length becomes almost energy-independent in the strong disorder limit. We show that this regime can be reached for a size of the speckle grains …
Using exact diagonalization technique, we investigate the many-body localization phenomenon in the 1D Heisenberg chain comparing several disorder models. In particular we consider a family of discrete distributions of disorder strengths and compare the results with the standard uniform distribution. Both statistical properties of energy levels and the long time non-ergodic behavior are discussed. The results for different discrete distributions are essentially identical to those obtained for the continuous distribution, provided the disorder strength is rescaled by the standard deviation of th…
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.
Emerging dynamical constraints resulting from inter-site interactions severely limit particle mobility in polar lattice gases. Whereas in absence of disorder hard-core Hubbard models with only strong nearest-neighbor interactions present Hilbert space fragmentation but no many-body localization for typical states, the $1/r^3$ tail of the dipolar interaction results in Hilbert space shattering, as well as in a dramatically slowed down dynamics and eventual disorder-free localization. Our results show that the study of the intriguing interplay between disorder- and interaction-induced many-body …
We study quantum transport in anisotropic 3D disorder and show that non rotation invariant correlations can induce rich diffusion and localization properties. For instance, structured finite-range correlations can lead to the inversion of the transport anisotropy. Moreover, working beyond the self-consistent theory of localization, we include the disorder-induced shift of the energy states and show that it strongly affects the mobility edge. Implications to recent experiments are discussed.
The interplay between local, repulsive interactions and disorder acting only on one spin orientation of lattice fermions ("spin-dependent disorder") is investigated. The nonmagnetic disorder vs. interaction phase diagram is computed using Dynamical Mean-Field Theory in combination with the geometric average over disorder. The latter determines the typical local density of states and is therefore sensitive to Anderson localization. The effect of spin-dependent disorder is found to be very different from that of conventional disorder. In particular, it destabilizes the metallic solution and lead…
The specific problem we address in these lectures is the problem of transport and localization in disordered systems, when interference is present, as characteristic for waves, with a focus on realizations with ultracold atoms.
We present a mapping between the Edwards model of disorder describing the motion of a single particle subject to randomly-positioned static scatterers and the Bose polaron problem of a light quantum impurity interacting with a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of heavy atoms. The mapping offers an experimental setting to investigate the physics of Anderson localization where, by exploiting the quantum nature of the BEC, the time evolution of the quantum impurity emulates the disorder-averaged dynamics of the Edwards model. Valid in any space dimension, the mapping can be extended to include inter…
The many-body localization (MBL) is commonly related to a strong spatial disorder. We show that MBL may alternatively be generated by adding a temporal disorder to periodically driven many-body systems. We reach this conclusion by mapping the evolution of such systems on the dynamics of the time-independent, disordered, Hubbard-like models. Our result opens the way to experimental studies of MBL in systems that reveal crystalline structures in the time domain. In particular, we discuss two relevant setups which can be implemented in experiments on ultra-cold atomic gases.
We report the first observation of coherent back-scattering (CBS) of light in a transverse photonic disorder. The CBS peak is recorded in the far-field, at a fixed propagation time set by our crystal length, and displays a contrast approaching the ideal value of 1, which proves good coherence of transport in our system. We study its dynamics for increasing disorder strength, and find a non-monotonous evolution. For weak disorder, the CBS signal increases, and the asymmetry of the momentum distribution becomes inverted compared to the initial condition. For stronger disorder, we observe a resym…
Disorder-free localization is a paradigm of nonergodicity in translation-invariant quantum many-body systems hosting gauge symmetries. The quench dynamics starting from simple initial states, which correspond to extensive superpositions of gauge superselection sectors, exhibits many-body localization with the system dynamically inducing its own disorder. An open question concerns the stability of disorder-free localization in the presence of gauge-breaking errors, and whether processes due to the latter can be controllably suppressed. Here, we show that translation-invariant \textit{single-bod…
The phenomenon of Many-Body Stark Localization of bosons in tilted optical lattice is studied. Despite the fact that no disorder is necessary for Stark localization to occur, it is very similar to well known many body localization (MBL) in sufficiently strong disorder. Not only the mean gap ratio reaches poissonian value as characteristic for localized situations but also the eigenstates reveal multifractal character as in standard MBL. Stark localization enables a coexistence of spacially separated thermal and localized phases in the harmonic trap similarly to fermions. Stark localization may…
We show that tunneling and localization properties of interacting ultracold atoms in an optical lattice can be controlled by adiabatically turning on a fast oscillatory force even in the presence of disorder. Our calculations are based on the exact solution of the time-dependent Schroedinger equation, using the Floquet formalism. Implications of our findings for larger systems and the possibility of controlling the phase diagram of disordered-interacting bosonic systems are discussed.
The center of mass of a bright soliton in a Bose-Einstein condensate may reveal Anderson localization in the presence of a weak disorder potential. We analyze the effects of interactions between two bright solitons on the Anderson localization phenomenon. Perturbation calculus shows that even very weak interactions modify localization properties of the system eigenstates. For stronger interactions, i.e. when the solitons are close to each other, the localization is totally broken. It implies that in order to experimentally observe the Anderson localization effects, a single bright soliton has …
We theoretically demonstrate features of Anderson localization in the Tonks-Girardeau gas confined in one-dimensional (1D) potentials with controlled disorder. That is, we investigate the evolution of the single particle density and correlations of a Tonks-Girardeau wave packet in such disordered potentials. The wave packet is initially trapped, the trap is suddenly turned off, and after some time the system evolves into a localized steady state due to Anderson localization. The density tails of the steady state decay exponentially, while the coherence in these tails increases. The latter phen…
We numerically simulate an oscillating Bose-Einstein condensate in a disordered trap [Phys. Rev. A 82, 033603 (2010)] and the results are in good agreement with the experiment. It allows us to verify that total energy and particle number are conserved in this quantum system. The disorder acts as a medium, which results in a relaxation from nonequilibrium to equilibrium, i.e., thermalization. An algebraic localization is realized when the system approaches the equilibrium, and if the system falls into the regime when the healing length of the condensate exceeds the correlation length of the dis…
We study the onset of localization from excited states of trapped Bose- Einstein Condensates expanding in presence of Gaussian uncorrelated random disorder. In 1D systems, we observe that for a fixed ratio between the disorder strength and the initial energy, excited states localize exponentially with a localization length that decreases as the energy of the initial state increases. Moreover, the localized state keeps the shape of the initial state wave function with an exponential tail. In 2D, we analyze the interplay between vorticiy and localization by examining the dispersion of a state co…
The many-body localization transition for Heisenberg spin chain with a speckle disorder is studied. Such a model is equivalent to a system of spinless fermions in an optical lattice with an additional speckle field. Our numerical results show that the many-body localization transition in speckle disorder falls within the same universality class as the transition in an uncorrelated random disorder, in contrast to the quasiperiodic potential typically studied in experiments. This hints at possibilities of experimental studies of the role of rare Griffiths regions and of the interplay of ergodic …
Disorder-free localization is a paradigm of strong ergodicity breaking that has been shown to occur in global quenches of lattice gauge theories when the system is initialized in a superposition over an extensive number of gauge sectors. Here, we show that preparing the system in a thermal Gibbs ensemble without any coherences between different gauge sectors also gives rise to disorder-free localization, with temperature acting as a disorder strength. We demonstrate our findings by calculating the quench dynamics of the imbalance of thermal ensembles in both $\mathrm{U}(1)$ and $\mathbb{Z}_2$ …
Anderson localization has been observed for a variety of media, including ultracold atomic gases with speckle disorder in one and three dimensions. However, observation of Anderson localization in a two-dimensional geometry for ultracold gases has been elusive. We show that a cause of this difficulty is the relatively high percolation threshold of a speckle potential in two dimensions, resulting in strong classical localization. We propose a realistic point-like disorder potential that circumvents this percolation limit with localization lengths that are experimentally observable. The percolat…
We study the Anderson localization of Bogoliubov quasiparticles (elementary many-body excitations) in a weakly interacting Bose gas of chemical potential $μ$ subjected to a disordered potential $V$. We introduce a general mapping (valid for weak inhomogeneous potentials in any dimension) of the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations onto a single-particle Schrödinger-like equation with an effective potential. For disordered potentials, the Schrödinger-like equation accounts for the scattering and localization properties of the Bogoliubov quasiparticles. We derive analytically the localization lengths …
Disordered geometrical boundaries such as rough surfaces induce important modifications to the mode spectrum of the electromagnetic quantum vacuum. In analogy to Anderson localization of waves induced by a random potential, here we show that the Casimir-Polder interaction between a cold atomic sample and a rough surface also produces localization phenomena. These effects, that represent a macroscopic manifestation of disorder in quantum vacuum, should be observable with Bose-Einstein condensates expanding in proximity of rough surfaces.
We investigate the Mott-Anderson physics in interacting disordered one-dimensional chains through the average single-site entanglement quantified by the linear entropy, which is obtained via density-functional theory calculations. We show that the minimum disorder strength required to the so-called full Anderson localization $-$ characterized by the real-space localization of pairs $-$ is strongly dependent on the interaction regime. The degree of localization is found to be intrinsically related to the interplay between the correlations and the disorder potential. In magnetized systems, the m…
We numerically study photon escape rates from three-dimensional atomic gases and investigate the respective roles of cooperative effects and disorder in photon localization, while taking into account the vectorial nature of light. A scaling behavior is observed for the escape rates, and photons undergo a crossover from delocalization toward localization as the optical thickness of the cloud is increased. This result indicates that light localization is dominated by cooperative effects rather than disorder. We compare our results with those obtained in the case of a scalar radiation field and f…
This paper studies the localization behaviour of Bose-Einstein condensates in disorder potentials, modeled by a Gross-Pitaevskii eigenvalue problem on a bounded interval. In the regime of weak particle interaction, we are able to quantify exponential localization of the ground state, depending on statistical parameters and the strength of the potential. Numerical studies further show delocalization if we leave the identified parameter range, which is in agreement with experimental data. These mathematical and numerical findings allow the prediction of physically relevant regimes where localiza…
