Many-Body Localization with Long-Range Interactions

Many-body localization (MBL) has emerged as a powerful paradigm for understanding nonequilibrium quantum dynamics. Folklore based on perturbative arguments holds that MBL arises only in systems with short-range interactions. Here, we advance nonperturbative arguments indicating that MBL can arise in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysical review. X Vol. 7; no. 4; p. 041021
Main Authors Nandkishore, Rahul M., Sondhi, S. L.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published College Park American Physical Society 25.10.2017
Subjects
CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS
Coherence
Confinement
Gauge theory
High temperature
Localization
Many body interactions
Perturbation theory
Quantum phenomena
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Summary:Many-body localization (MBL) has emerged as a powerful paradigm for understanding nonequilibrium quantum dynamics. Folklore based on perturbative arguments holds that MBL arises only in systems with short-range interactions. Here, we advance nonperturbative arguments indicating that MBL can arise in systems with long-range (Coulomb) interactions, through a mechanism we dub “order enabled localization.” In particular, we show using bosonization that MBL can arise in one-dimensional systems with ∼r interactions, a problem that exhibits charge confinement. We also argue that (through the Anderson-Higgs mechanism) MBL can arise in two-dimensional systems with logr interactions, and speculate that our arguments may even extend to three-dimensional systems with 1/r interactions. Our arguments are asymptotic (i.e., valid up to rare region corrections), yet they open the door to investigation of MBL physics in a wide array of long-range interacting systems where such physics was previously believed not to arise.
Bibliography:USDOE
SC0016244
ISSN:2160-3308
2160-3308
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevX.7.041021