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Observation of Slow Dynamics near the Many-Body Localization Transition in One-Dimensional Quasiperiodic Systems.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Lüschen, Henrik P 
Bordia, Pranjal 
Scherg, Sebastian 
Alet, Fabien 
Altman, Ehud 

Abstract

In the presence of sufficiently strong disorder or quasiperiodic fields, an interacting many-body system can fail to thermalize and become many-body localized. The associated transition is of particular interest, since it occurs not only in the ground state but over an extended range of energy densities. So far, theoretical studies of the transition have focused mainly on the case of true-random disorder. In this work, we experimentally and numerically investigate the regime close to the many-body localization transition in quasiperiodic systems. We find slow relaxation of the density imbalance close to the transition, strikingly similar to the behavior near the transition in true-random systems. This dynamics is found to continuously slow down upon approaching the transition and allows for an estimate of the transition point. We discuss possible microscopic origins of these slow dynamics.

Description

Keywords

cond-mat.quant-gas, cond-mat.quant-gas, cond-mat.dis-nn, cond-mat.stat-mech, cond-mat.str-el, quant-ph

Journal Title

Phys Rev Lett

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0031-9007
1079-7114

Volume Title

119

Publisher

American Physical Society (APS)