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arXiv · 1609.00390

A Floquet Model for the Many-Body Localization Transition

Abstract

The nature of the dynamical quantum phase transition between the many-body localized (MBL) phase and the thermal phase remains an open question, and one line of attack on this problem is to explore this transition numerically in finite-size systems. To maximize the contrast between the MBL phase and the thermal phase in such finite-size systems, we argue one should choose a Floquet model with no local conservation laws and rapid thermalization to "infinite temperature" in the thermal phase. Here we introduce and explore such a Floquet spin chain model, and show that standard diagnostics of the MBL-to-thermal transition behave well in this model even at modest sizes. We also introduce a physically motivated spacetime correlation function which peaks at the transition in the Floquet model, but is strongly affected by conservation laws in Hamiltonian models.

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Liangsheng Zhang, Vedika Khemani, David A. Huse. 2016-09-01. A Floquet Model for the Many-Body Localization Transition. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.94.224202

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