No Arabic abstract
We present a framework in which the transition between a many-body localised (MBL) phase and an ergodic one is symmetry breaking. We consider random Floquet spin chains, expressing their averaged spectral form factor (SFF) as a function of time in terms of a transfer matrix that acts in the space direction. The SFF is determined by the leading eigenvalues of this transfer matrix. In the MBL phase the leading eigenvalue is unique, as in a symmetry-unbroken phase, while in the ergodic phase and at late times the leading eigenvalues are asymptotically degenerate, as in a system with degenerate symmetry-breaking phases. We identify the broken symmetry of the transfer matrix, introduce a local order parameter for the transition, and show that the associated correlation functions are long-ranged only in the ergodic phase.
We investigate spectral statistics in spatially extended, chaotic many-body quantum systems with a conserved charge. We compute the spectral form factor $K(t)$ analytically for a minimal Floquet circuit model that has a $U(1)$ symmetry encoded via auxiliary spin-$1/2$ degrees of freedom. Averaging over an ensemble of realizations, we relate $K(t)$ to a partition function for the spins, given by a Trotterization of the spin-$1/2$ Heisenberg ferromagnet. Using Bethe Ansatz techniques, we extract the Thouless time $t^{vphantom{*}}_{rm Th}$ demarcating the extent of random matrix behavior, and find scaling behavior governed by diffusion for $K(t)$ at $tlesssim t^{vphantom{*}}_{rm Th}$. We also report numerical results for $K(t)$ in a generic Floquet spin model, which are consistent with these analytic predictions.
We study many-body quantum dynamics using Floquet quantum circuits in one space dimension as simple examples of systems with local interactions that support ergodic phases. Physical properties can be expressed in terms of multiple sums over Feynman histories, which for these models are paths or many-body orbits in Fock space. A natural simplification of such sums is the diagonal approximation, where the only terms that are retained are ones in which each path is paired with a partner that carries the complex conjugate weight. We identify the regime in which the diagonal approximation holds, and the nature of the leading corrections to it. We focus on the behaviour of the spectral form factor (SFF) and of matrix elements of local operators, averaged over an ensemble of random circuits, making comparisons with the predictions of random matrix theory (RMT) and the eigenstate thermalisation hypothesis (ETH). We show that properties are dominated at long times by contributions to orbit sums in which each orbit is paired locally with a conjugate, as in the diagonal approximation, but that in large systems these contributions consist of many spatial domains, with distinct local pairings in neighbouring domains. The existence of these domains is reflected in deviations of the SFF from RMT predictions, and of matrix element correlations from ETH predictions; deviations of both kinds diverge with system size. We demonstrate that our physical picture of orbit-pairing domains has a precise correspondence in the spectral properties of a transfer matrix that acts in the space direction to generate the ensemble-averaged SFF. In addition, we find that domains of a second type control non-Gaussian fluctuations of the SFF. These domains are separated by walls which are related to the entanglement membrane, known to characterise the scrambling of quantum information.
We provide a simple and predictive random-matrix framework that naturally generalizes Pages law for ergodic many-body systems by incorporating a finite entanglement localization length. By comparing a highly structured one-dimensional model to a completely unstructured model and a physical system, we uncover a remarkable degree of universality, suggesting that the effective localization length is a universal combination of model parameters up until it drops down to the microscopic scale.
We compare accuracy of two prime time evolution algorithms involving Matrix Product States - tDMRG (time-dependent density matrix renormalization group) and TDVP (time-dependent variational principle). The latter is supposed to be superior within a limited and fixed auxiliary space dimension. Surprisingly, we find that the performance of algorithms depends on the model considered. In particular, many-body localized systems as well as the crossover regions between localized and delocalized phases are better described by tDMRG, contrary to the delocalized regime where TDVP indeed outperforms tDMRG in terms of accuracy and reliability. As an example, we study many-body localization transition in a large size Heisenberg chain. We discuss drawbacks of previous estimates [Phys. Rev. B 98, 174202 (2018)] of the critical disorder strength for large systems.
It is suggested that many-body quantum chaos appears as spontaneous symmetry breaking of unitarity in interacting quantum many-body systems. It has been shown that many-body level statistics, probed by the spectral form factor (SFF) defined as $K(beta,t)=langle|{rm Tr}, exp(-beta H + itH)|^2rangle$, is dominated by a diffusion-type mode in a field theory analysis. The key finding of this paper is that the unitary $beta=0$ case is different from the $beta to 0^+$ limit, with the latter leading to a finite mass of these modes due to interactions. This mass suppresses a rapid exponential ramp in the SFF, which is responsible for the fast emergence of Poisson statistics in the non-interacting case, and gives rise to a non-trivial random matrix structure of many-body levels. The interaction-induced mass in the SFF shares similarities with the dephasing rate in the theory of weak localization and the Lyapunov exponent of the out-of-time-ordered correlators.