Phenomenology of the Prethermal Many-Body Localized Regime

Journal Article · 08 September 2023 · Physical Review Letters

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.131.106301 · OSTI ID:2417799

Long, David M.  ^[1]; Crowley, Philip J. D. ^[2]; Khemani, Vedika ^[3]; Chandran, Anushya ^[4]

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1. Boston Univ., MA (United States); OSTI
2. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
3. Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
4. Boston Univ., MA (United States)

The dynamical phase diagram of interacting disordered systems has seen substantial revision over the past few years. Theory must now account for a large prethermal many-body localized regime in which thermalization is extremely slow, but not completely arrested. We derive a quantitative description of these dynamics in short-ranged one-dimensional systems using a model of successive many-body resonances. Here, the model explains the decay timescale of mean autocorrelators, the functional form of the decay—a stretched exponential—and relates the value of the stretch exponent to the broad distribution of resonance timescales. The Jacobi method of matrix diagonalization provides numerical access to this distribution, as well as a conceptual framework for our analysis. The resonance model correctly predicts the stretch exponents for several models in the literature. Successive resonances may also underlie slow thermalization in strongly disordered systems in higher dimensions, or with long-range interactions.

• Research Organization: Krell Institute, Ames, IA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC); US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR); National Science Foundation (NSF)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0021110
• OSTI ID: 2417799
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 131; ISSN 0031-9007
• Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English