Many-body localization in a quantum simulator with programmable random disorder

By Jacob W. Smith, Aaron C. Lee, Philip Richerme, B. Neyenhuis, P. Hess, Philipp Hauke, Markus Heyl, D. Huse, Christopher R. Monroe. Nature Physics, 2015

866 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Interacting quantum systems are expected to thermalize, but in some situations in the presence of disorder they can exist in localized states instead. This many-body localization is studied experimentally in a small system with programmable disorder. When a system thermalizes it loses all memory of its initial conditions. Even within a closed quantum system, subsystems usually thermalize using the rest of the system as a heat bath. Exceptions to quantum thermalization have been observed, but typically require inherent symmetries1,2 or noninteracting particles in the presence of static disorder3,4,5,6. However, for strong interactions and high excitation energy there are cases, known as many-body localization (MBL), where disordered quantum systems can fail to thermalize7,8,9,10. We experimentally generate MBL states by applying an Ising Hamiltonian with long-range interactions and programmable random disorder to ten spins initialized far from equilibrium. Using experimental and numerical methods we observe the essential signatures of MBL: initial-state memory retention, Poissonian distributed energy level spacings, and evidence of long-time entanglement growth. Our platform can be scaled to more spins, where a detailed modelling of MBL becomes impossible.

Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cad7072ce56b0120a2d2b0fb53f5ad60ee2df2f5

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In Artificial Intelligence

1. A. Nahum
2. Matthew Fisher
3. V. Khemani
4. Yuan Su
5. Brian Swingle
6. S. Vijay
7. Neil J. Ross
8. Y. Nam

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. V. Khemani
2. A. Nahum
3. Matthew Fisher
4. Brian Swingle
5. D. Abanin
6. Romain Vasseur
7. S. Vijay
8. Maksym Serbyn

Citations in the corpus

• Entanglement Phase Transition Induced by the Non-Hermitian Skin Effect (2022, background): “Thanks to the recent advances in quantum simulations and technologies, such thermalization dynamics was experimentally observed in ultracold atoms [5–7] and trapped ions [8].”
• Nonequilibrium quantum dynamics and transport: from integrability to many-body localization (2016, background): “cover here, let us mention the recent experimental realizations of many-body localized systems [6, 7], MBL driven (Floquet) systems [65, 66, 67, 68], MBL systems coupled to a bath [69, 70, 71, 72], MBL with long-range interactions [73, 74, 75], or (quasi-)MBL in translation-invariant systems [76, 77”
• Many-body localization and delocalization in large quantum chains (2018, background): “Experimentally, MBL has been reported in ultracold atoms [13, 14], trapped ions [15], and dipolar spins in diamond [16].”
• Colloquium : Many-body localization, thermalization, and entanglement (2018, background): “Stationary states in such systems are described by quantum statistical mechanics (Deutsch, 1991; Srednicki, 1994).”
• Many-body localization: An introduction and selected topics (2017, neutral): “[87] finds clear signatures of a MBL phase, as probed by a non-zero value of staggered magnetization in the long-time after a quench from an initially programmed Néel state (this measure is identical to imbalance in the cold-atom experiments above).”