Exploring Localization in Nuclear Spin Chains

Ken Xuan Wei, Chandrasekhar Ramanathan, and Paola Cappellaro
Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 070501 – Published 12 February 2018
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Abstract

Characterizing out-of-equilibrium many-body dynamics is a complex but crucial task for quantum applications and understanding fundamental phenomena. A central question is the role of localization in quenching thermalization in many-body systems and whether such localization survives in the presence of interactions. Probing this question in real systems necessitates the development of an experimentally measurable metric that can distinguish between different types of localization. While it is known that the localized phase of interacting systems [many-body localization (MBL)] exhibits a long-time logarithmic growth in entanglement entropy that distinguishes it from the noninteracting case of Anderson localization (AL), entanglement entropy is difficult to measure experimentally. Here, we present a novel correlation metric, capable of distinguishing MBL from AL in high-temperature spin systems. We demonstrate the use of this metric to detect localization in a natural solid-state spin system using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). We engineer the natural Hamiltonian to controllably introduce disorder and interactions, and observe the emergence of localization. In particular, while our correlation metric saturates for AL, it slowly keeps increasing for MBL, demonstrating analogous features to entanglement entropy, as we show in simulations. Our results show that our NMR techniques, akin to measuring out-of-time correlations, are well suited for studying localization in spin systems.

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  • Received 26 July 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.070501

© 2018 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied PhysicsQuantum Information, Science & TechnologyStatistical Physics & Thermodynamics

Authors & Affiliations

Ken Xuan Wei1, Chandrasekhar Ramanathan2, and Paola Cappellaro3,*

  • 1Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
  • 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755, USA
  • 3Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

  • *pcappell@mit.edu

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Issue

Vol. 120, Iss. 7 — 16 February 2018

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