Many-body localization of bosons in optical lattices

Many-body localization for a system of bosons trapped in a one dimensional lattice is discussed. Two models that may be realized for cold atoms in optical lattices are considered. The model with a random on-site potential is compared with previously introduced random interactions model. While the origin and character of the disorder in both systems is different they show interesting similar properties. In particular, many-body localization appears for a sufficiently large disorder as verified by a time evolution of initial density wave states as well as using statistical properties of energy levels for small system sizes. Starting with different initial states, we observe that the localization properties are energy-dependent which reveals an inverted many-body localization edge in both systems (that finding is also verified by statistical analysis of energy spectrum). Moreover, we consider computationally challenging regime of transition between many body localized and extended phases where we observe a characteristic algebraic decay of density correlations which may be attributed to subdiffusion (and Griffiths-like regions) in the studied systems. Ergodicity breaking in the disordered Bose-Hubbard models is compared with the slowing-down of the time evolution of the clean system at large interactions.Comment: expanded second version, comments welcom

Discrete disorder models for many-body localization

Using exact diagonalization technique, we investigate the many-body localization phenomenon in the 1D Heisenberg chain comparing several disorder models. In particular we consider a family of discrete distributions of disorder strengths and compare the results with the standard uniform distribution. Both statistical properties of energy levels and the long time non-ergodic behavior are discussed. The results for different discrete distributions are essentially identical to those obtained for the continuous distribution, provided the disorder strength is rescaled by the standard deviation of the random distribution. Only for the binary distribution significant deviations are observed.Comment: version accepted in Phys. Rev.

Level statistics across the many--body localization transition

Level statistics of systems that undergo many--body localization transition are studied. An analysis of the gap ratio statistics from the perspective of inter- and intra-sample randomness allows us to pin point differences between transitions in random and quasi-random disorder, showing the effects due to Griffiths rare events for the former case. It is argued that the transition in the case of random disorder exhibits universal features that are identified by constructing an appropriate model of intermediate spectral statistics which is a generalization of the family of short-range plasma models. The considered weighted short-range plasma model yields a very good agreement both for level spacing distribution including its exponential tail and the number variance up to tens of level spacings outperforming previously proposed models. In particular, our model grasps the critical level statistics which arise at disorder strength for which the inter-sample fluctuations are the strongest. Going beyond the paradigmatic examples of many-body localization in spin systems, we show that the considered model also grasps the level statistics of disordered Bose- and Fermi-Hubbard models. The remaining deviations for long-range spectral correlations are discussed and attributed mainly to the intricacies of level unfolding.Comment: 19pp. enlarged by including 1807.06983; version accepted in Phys. Rev.

Breakdown of adiabaticity when loading ultra-cold atoms in optical lattices

Realistic simulations of current ultra-cold atoms experiments in optical lattices show that the ramping up of the optical lattice is significantly nonadiabatic, implying that experimentally prepared Mott insulators are not really in the ground state of the atomic system. The nonadiabaticity is even larger in the presence of a secondary quasi-periodic lattice simulating "disorder". Alternative ramping schemes are suggested that improve the adiabaticity when the disorder is not too large.Comment: 4pp, 3 fig

Properties of the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model from a high-order perturbative expansion

We employ a high-order perturbative expansion to characterize the ground state of the Mott phase of the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model. We compute for different integer filling factors the energy per lattice site, the two-point and density-density correlations, and expectation values of powers of the on-site number operator determining the local atom number fluctuations (variance, skewness, kurtosis). We compare these expansions to numerical simulations of the infinite-size system to determine their range of applicability. We also discuss a new sum rule for the density-density correlations that can be used in both equilibrium and non-equilibrium systems.Comment: 16 pages, published versio

Many-body localization in Bose-Hubbard model: evidence for the mobility edge

Motivated by recent experiments on interacting bosons in quasi-one-dimensional optical lattice [Nature {\bf 573}, 385 (2019)] we analyse theoretically properties of the system in the crossover between delocalized and localized regimes. Comparison of time dynamics for uniform and density wave like initial states enables demonstration of the existence of the mobility edge. To this end we define a new observable, the mean speed of transport at long times. It gives us an efficient estimate of the critical disorder for the crossover. We also show that the mean velocity growth of occupation fluctuations close to the edges of the system carries the similar information. Using the quantum quench procedure we show that it is possible to probe the mobility edge for different energies.Comment: 4+4pp. major revisio

Fast dynamics for atoms in optical lattices

Cold atoms in optical lattices allow for accurate studies of many body dynamics. Rapid time-dependent modifications of optical lattice potentials may result in significant excitations in atomic systems. The dynamics in such a case is frequently quite incompletely described by standard applications of tight-binding models (such as e.g. Bose-Hubbard model or its extensions) that typically neglect the effect of the dynamics on the transformation between the real space and the tight-binding basis. We illustrate the importance of a proper quantum mechanical description using a multi-band extended Bose-Hubbard model with time-dependent Wannier functions. We apply it to situations, directly related to experiments.Comment: 4pp+supplement, final version accepted in Phys. Rev. Let