2 research outputs found
Ergodicity breaking in a model showing many-body localization
We study the breaking of ergodicity measured in terms of return probability
in the evolution of a quantum state of a spin chain. In the non ergodic phase a
quantum state evolves in a much smaller fraction of the Hilbert space than
would be allowed by the conservation of extensive observables. By the anomalous
scaling of the participation ratios with system size we are led to consider the
distribution of the wave function coefficients, a standard observable in modern
studies of Anderson localization. We finally present a criterion for the
identification of the ergodicity breaking (many-body localization) transition
based on these distributions which is quite robust and well suited for
numerical investigations of a broad class of problems.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, final versio
Energy gaps in quantum first-order mean-field-like transitions: The problems that quantum annealing cannot solve
We study first-order quantum phase transitions in models where the mean-field
traitment is exact, and the exponentially fast closure of the energy gap with
the system size at the transition. We consider exactly solvable ferromagnetic
models, and show that they reduce to the Grover problem in a particular limit.
We compute the coefficient in the exponential closure of the gap using an
instantonic approach, and discuss the (dire) consequences for quantum
annealing.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure