Many-body localization near the critical point

Journal Article · Mon Sep 21 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Physical Review. B

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.102.125134· OSTI ID:1802890

Morningstar, Alan ^[1]; Huse, David A. ^[2]; Imbrie, John Z. ^[3]

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1. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States); OSTI
2. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States); Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ (United States)
3. Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (United States)

Here, we examine the many-body localization (MBL) phase transition in one-dimensional quantum systems with quenched randomness and short-range interactions. Following recent works, we use a strong-randomness renormalization group (RG) approach where the phase transition is due to the so-called avalanche instability of the MBL phase. We show that the critical behavior can be determined analytically within this RG. On a rough qualitative level the RG flow near the critical fixed point is similar to the Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT) flow as previously shown, but there are important differences in the critical behavior. Thus, we show that this MBL transition is in a universality class that is different from KT. The divergence of the correlation length corresponds to critical exponent $$\textit{ν → ∞}$$, but the divergence is weaker than for the KT transition.

• Research Organization: Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC); Simons Foundation; USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0016244
• OSTI ID: 1802890
• Journal Information: Physical Review. B, Journal Name: Physical Review. B Journal Issue: 12 Vol. 102; ISSN 2469-9950
• Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
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Materials Science
Physics