Disorder-induced spin-charge separation in the 1-D Hubbard model

Abstract

Many-body localisation is believed to be generically unstable in quantum systems with continuous non-Abelian symmetries, even in the presence of strong disorder. Breaking these symmetries can stabilise the localised phase, leading to the emergence of an extensive number of quasi-locally conserved quantities known as local integrals of motion, or $l$-bits. Using a sophisticated non-perturbative technique based on continuous unitary transforms, we investigate the one-dimensional Hubbard model subject to both spin and charge disorder, compute the associated $l$-bits and demonstrate that the disorder gives rise to a novel form of spin-charge separation. We examine the role of symmetries in delocalising the spin and charge degrees of freedom, and show that while symmetries generally lead to delocalisation through multi-particle resonant processes, certain subsets of states appear stable.