No Arabic abstract
In [Van Beeumen, et. al, HPC Asia 2020, https://www.doi.org/10.1145/3368474.3368497] a scalable and matrix-free eigensolver was proposed for studying the many-body localization (MBL) transition of two-level quantum spin chain models with nearest-neighbor $XX+YY$ interactions plus $Z$ terms. This type of problem is computationally challenging because the vector space dimension grows exponentially with the physical system size, and averaging over different configurations of the random disorder is needed to obtain relevant statistical behavior. For each eigenvalue problem, eigenvalues from different regions of the spectrum and their corresponding eigenvectors need to be computed. Traditionally, the interior eigenstates for a single eigenvalue problem are computed via the shift-and-invert Lanczos algorithm. Due to the extremely high memory footprint of the LU factorizations, this technique is not well suited for large number of spins $L$, e.g., one needs thousands of compute nodes on modern high performance computing infrastructures to go beyond $L = 24$. The matrix-free approach does not suffer from this memory bottleneck, however, its scalability is limited by a computation and communication imbalance. We present a few strategies to reduce this imbalance and to significantly enhance the scalability of the matrix-free eigensolver. To optimize the communication performance, we leverage the consistent space runtime, CSPACER, and show its efficiency in accelerating the MBL irregular communication patterns at scale compared to optimized MPI non-blocking two-sided and one-sided RMA implementation variants. The efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by computing eigenstates on a massively parallel many-core high performance computer.
We numerically study the level statistics of the Gaussian $beta$ ensemble. These statistics generalize Wigner-Dyson level statistics from the discrete set of Dyson indices $beta = 1,2,4$ to the continuous range $0 < beta < infty$. The Gaussian $beta$ ensemble covers Poissonian level statistics for $beta to 0$, and provides a smooth interpolation between Poissonian and Wigner-Dyson level statistics. We establish the physical relevance of the level statistics of the Gaussian $beta$ ensemble by showing near-perfect agreement with the level statistics of a paradigmatic model in studies on many-body localization over the entire crossover range from the thermal to the many-body localized phase. In addition, we show similar agreement for a related Hamiltonian with broken time-reversal symmetry.
Recent developments in matrix-product-state (MPS) investigations of many-body localization (MBL) are reviewed, with a discussion of benefits and limitations of the method. This approach allows one to explore the physics around the MBL transition in systems much larger than those accessible to exact diagonalization. System sizes and length scales that can be controllably accessed by the MPS approach are comparable to those studied in state-of-the-art experiments. Results for 1D, quasi-1D, and 2D random systems, as well as 1D quasi-periodic systems are presented. On time scales explored (up to $t approx 300$ in units set by the hopping amplitude), a slow, subdiffusive transport in a rather broad disorder range on the ergodic side of the MBL transition is found. For 1D random spin chains, which serve as a standard model of the MBL transition, the MPS study demonstrates a substantial drift of the critical point $W_c(L)$ with the system size $L$: while for $L approx 20$ we find $W_c approx 4$, as also given by exact diagonalization, the MPS results for $L = 50$--100 provide evidence that the critical disorder saturates, in the large-$L$ limit, at $W_c approx 5.5$. For quasi-periodic systems, these finite-size effects are much weaker, which suggests that they can be largely attributed to rare events. For quasi-1D ($dtimes L$, with $d ll L$) and 2D ($Ltimes L$) random systems, the MPS data demonstrate an unbounded growth of $W_c$ in the limit of large $d$ and $L$, in agreement with analytical predictions based on the rare-event avalanche theory.
We propose a new approach to probing ergodicity and its breakdown in quantum many-body systems based on their response to a local perturbation. We study the distribution of matrix elements of a local operator between the systems eigenstates, finding a qualitatively different behaviour in the many-body localized (MBL) and ergodic phases. To characterize how strongly a local perturbation modifies the eigenstates, we introduce the parameter ${cal G}(L)=langle ln (V_{nm}/delta) rangle$, which represents a disorder-averaged ratio of a typical matrix element of a local operator $V$ to the energy level spacing, $delta$; this parameter is reminiscent of the Thouless conductance in the single-particle localization. We show that the parameter ${cal G}(L)$ decreases with system size $L$ in the MBL phase, and grows in the ergodic phase. We surmise that the delocalization transition occurs when ${cal G}(L)$ is independent of system size, ${cal G}(L)={cal G}_csim 1$. We illustrate our approach by studying the many-body localization transition and resolving the many-body mobility edge in a disordered 1D XXZ spin-1/2 chain using exact diagonalization and time-evolving block decimation methods. Our criterion for the MBL transition gives insights into microscopic details of transition. Its direct physical consequences, in particular logarithmically slow transport at the transition, and extensive entanglement entropy of the eigenstates, are consistent with recent renormalization group predictions.
Subsystems of strongly disordered, interacting quantum systems can fail to thermalize because of the phenomenon of many-body localization (MBL). In this article, we explore a tensor network description of the eigenspectra of such systems. Specifically, we will argue that the presence of a complete set of local integrals of motion in MBL implies an efficient representation of the entire spectrum of energy eigenstates with a single tensor network, a emph{spectral} tensor network. Our results are rigorous for a class of idealized systems related to MBL with integrals of motion of finite support. In one spatial dimension, the spectral tensor network allows for the efficient computation of expectation values of a large class of operators (including local operators and string operators) in individual energy eigenstates and in ensembles.
We investigate a many-body localization transition based on a Boltzmann transport theory. Introducing weak localization corrections into a Boltzmann equation, Hershfield and Ambegaokar re-derived the Wolfle-Vollhardt self-consistent equation for the diffusion coefficient [Phys. Rev. B {bf 34}, 2147 (1986)]. We generalize this Boltzmann equation framework, introducing electron-electron interactions into the Hershfield-Ambegaokar Boltzmann transport theory based on the study of Zala-Narozhny-Aleiner [Phys. Rev. B {bf 64}, 214204 (2001)]. Here, not only Altshuler-Aronov corrections but also dephasing effects are taken into account. As a result, we obtain a self-consistent equation for the diffusion coefficient in terms of the disorder strength and temperature, which extends the Wolfle-Vollhardt self-consistent equation in the presence of electron correlations. Solving our self-consistent equation numerically, we find a many-body localization insulator-metal transition, where a metallic phase appears from dephasing effects dominantly instead of renormalization effects at high temperatures. Although this mechanism is consistent with that of recent seminal papers [Ann. Phys. (N. Y). {bf 321}, 1126 (2006); Phys. Rev. Lett. {bf 95}, 206603 (2005)], we find that our three-dimensional metal-insulator transition belongs to the first order transition, which differs from the Anderson metal-insulator transition described by the Wolfle-Vollhardt self-consistent theory. We speculate that a bimodal distribution function for the diffusion coefficient is responsible for this first order phase transition.