Many-body localization phase transition

Arijeet Pal and David A. Huse
Phys. Rev. B 82, 174411 – Published 9 November 2010

Abstract

We use exact diagonalization to explore the many-body localization transition in a random-field spin-1/2 chain. We examine the correlations within each many-body eigenstate, looking at all high-energy states and thus effectively working at infinite temperature. For weak random field the eigenstates are thermal, as expected in this nonlocalized, “ergodic” phase. For strong random field the eigenstates are localized with only short-range entanglement. We roughly locate the localization transition and examine some of its finite-size scaling, finding that this quantum phase transition at nonzero temperature might be showing infinite-randomness scaling with a dynamic critical exponent z.

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  • Received 21 October 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.82.174411

©2010 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Arijeet Pal and David A. Huse

  • Physics Department, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

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Issue

Vol. 82, Iss. 17 — 1 November 2010

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