Colloquium : Many-body localization, thermalization, and entanglement

By D. Abanin, E. Altman, I. Bloch, Maksym Serbyn. Reviews of Modern Physics, 2018

1,523 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Thermalizing quantum systems are conventionallydescribed by statistical mechanics at equilib-rium. However, not all systems fall into this category, with many-body localization providinga generic mechanism for thermalization to fail in strongly disordered systems. Many-bodylocalized (MBL) systems remain perfect insulators at nonzero temperature, which do notthermalize and therefore cannot be describedusing statistical mechanics. This Colloquiumreviews recent theoretical and experimental advances in studies of MBL systems, focusing onthe new perspective provided by entanglement and nonequilibrium experimental probes suchas quantum quenches. Theoretically, MBL systems exhibit a new kind of robust integrability: anextensive set of quasilocal integrals of motion emerges, which provides an intuitive explanationof the breakdown of thermalization. A description based on quasilocal integrals of motion isused to predict dynamical properties of MBL systems, such as the spreading of quantumentanglement, the behavior of local observables, and the response to external dissipativeprocesses. Furthermore, MBL systems can exhibit eigenstate transitions and quantum ordersforbidden in thermodynamic equilibrium. An outline isgiven of the current theoretical under-standing of the quantum-to-classical transitionbetween many-body localized and ergodic phasesand anomalous transport in the vicinity of that transition. Experimentally, synthetic quantumsystems, which are well isolated from an external thermal reservoir, provide natural platforms forrealizing the MBL phase. Recent experiments with ultracold atoms, trapped ions, superconductingqubits, and quantum materials, in which different signatures of many-body localization have beenobserved, are reviewed. This Colloquium concludes by listing outstanding challenges andpromising future research directions.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Condensed Matter Physics, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e55f5fc607a8a7ee916b8a4893b61dc577cb0b28

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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. V. Khemani
2. A. Nahum
3. Matthew Fisher
4. D. Huse
5. D. Abanin
6. Maksym Serbyn
7. I. Bloch
8. R. Nandkishore

In Condensed Matter Physics

1. V. Khemani
2. D. Huse
3. Matthew Fisher
4. R. Nandkishore
5. A. Nahum
6. D. Abanin
7. Maksym Serbyn
8. Anushya Chandran

In Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

1. V. Khemani
2. A. Nahum
3. Maksym Serbyn
4. D. Huse
5. R. Nandkishore
6. D. Abanin
7. Matthew Fisher
8. E. Altman

Citations in the corpus

• Quantum many-body scars and weak breaking of ergodicity (2020, background): “On the other hand, disorder in an interacting system may induce many-body localization (MBL) [4, 5], a close relative of the celebrated Anderson localization for non-interacting particles.”
• Random Quantum Circuits (2022, background): “Physical Review X, 10(3):031066, 2020.”
• Avalanches and many-body resonances in many-body localized systems (2021, background): “Many-body localized (MBL) systems fail to reach thermal equilibrium under their own dynamics, and have been a subject of intense interest over the last decade [1–7].”
• Quantum Many-Body Scars: A Quasiparticle Perspective (2022, background): “The one generic exception to the ETH is believed to be provided by many-body localization (MBL) in strongly disordered, yet interacting systems (46, 47), in which extensively many local conserved degrees of freedom preclude thermalization (48, 49, 50).”