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Absence of Ergodicity without Quenched Disorder: From Quantum Disentangled Liquids to Many-Body Localization

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Moessner, R 
Kovrizhin, DL 

Abstract

We study the time evolution after a quantum quench in a family of models whose degrees of freedom are fermions coupled to spins, where quenched disorder appears neither in the Hamiltonian parameters nor in the initial state. Focusing on the behavior of entanglement, both spatial and between subsystems, we show that the model supports a state exhibiting combined area and volume-law entanglement, being characteristic of the quantum disentangled liquid. This behavior appears for one set of variables, which is related via a duality mapping to another set, where this structure is absent. Upon adding density interactions between the fermions, we identify an exact mapping to an XXZ spin chain in a random binary magnetic field, thereby establishing the existence of many-body localization with its logarithmic entanglement growth in a fully disorder-free system.

Description

Keywords

cond-mat.str-el, cond-mat.str-el

Journal Title

Physical Review Letters

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0031-9007
1079-7114

Volume Title

119

Publisher

APS
Sponsorship
European Commission Horizon 2020 (H2020) Marie Sk?odowska-Curie actions (703697)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/M007928/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/M508007/1)
A. S. acknowledges EPSRC for studentship funding under Grant No. EP/M508007/1. J. K. is supported by the Marie Curie Programme under EC Grant agreement No. 703697. The work of D. L. K. was supported by EPSRC Grant No. EP/M007928/1. R. M. was in part supported by DFG under Grant No. SFB 1143.