Rare‐region effects and dynamics near the many‐body localization transition
Abstract
The low‐frequency response of systems near the many‐body localization phase transition, on either side of the transition, is dominated by contributions from rare regions that are locally “in the other phase”, i.e., rare localized regions in a system that is typically thermal, or rare thermal regions in a system that is typically localized. Rare localized regions affect the properties of the thermal phase, especially in one dimension, by acting as bottlenecks for transport and the growth of entanglement, whereas rare thermal regions in the localized phase act as local “baths” and dominate the low‐frequency response of the MBL phase. We review recent progress in understanding these rare‐region effects, and discuss some of the open questions associated with them: in particular, whether and in what circumstances a single rare thermal region can destabilize the many‐body localized phase.image
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Jan 12, 2017
- Source ID
- 10.1002/andp.201600326
Entities
People
- David A. Huse
- Ehud Altman
- Eugene A. Demler
- Kartiek Agarwal
- Michael Knap
- Sarang Gopalakrishnan
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Army Research Office
- College of Staten Island
- European Commission
- European Research Council
- German Research Foundation
- Harvard University
- National Science Foundation
- Princeton University
- Technical University of Munich
- United States Department of Energy