Regimes of heating and dynamical response in driven many-body localized systems

We explore the response of many-body localized (MBL) systems to periodic driving of arbitrary amplitude, focusing on the rate at which they exchange energy with the drive. To this end, we introduce an infinite-temperature generalization of the effective "heating rate" in terms of the spread of a random walk in energy space. We compute this heating rate numerically and estimate it analytically in various regimes. When the drive amplitude is much smaller than the frequency, this effective heating rate is given by linear response theory with a coefficient that is proportional to the optical conductivity; in the opposite limit, the response is nonlinear and the heating rate is a nontrivial power-law of time. We discuss the mechanisms underlying this crossover in the MBL phase, and comment on its implications for the subdiffusive thermal phase near the MBL transition.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figure

Far-from-equilibrium field theory of many-body quantum spin systems: Prethermalization and relaxation of spin spiral states in three dimensions

We study theoretically the far-from-equilibrium relaxation dynamics of spin spiral states in the three dimensional isotropic Heisenberg model. The investigated problem serves as an archetype for understanding quantum dynamics of isolated many-body systems in the vicinity of a spontaneously broken continuous symmetry. We present a field-theoretical formalism that systematically improves on mean-field for describing the real-time quantum dynamics of generic spin-1/2 systems. This is achieved by mapping spins to Majorana fermions followed by a 1/N expansion of the resulting two-particle irreducible (2PI) effective action. Our analysis reveals rich fluctuation-induced relaxation dynamics in the unitary evolution of spin spiral states. In particular, we find the sudden appearance of long-lived prethermalized plateaus with diverging lifetimes as the spiral winding is tuned toward the thermodynamically stable ferro- or antiferromagnetic phases. The emerging prethermalized states are characterized by different bosonic modes being thermally populated at different effective temperatures, and by a hierarchical relaxation process reminiscent of glassy systems. Spin-spin correlators found by solving the non-equilibrium Bethe-Salpeter equation provide further insight into the dynamic formation of correlations, the fate of unstable collective modes, and the emergence of fluctuation-dissipation relations. Our predictions can be verified experimentally using recent realizations of spin spiral states with ultracold atoms in a quantum gas microscope [S. Hild, et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 147205 (2014)]

Benchmarking the variational cluster approach by means of the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model

Convergence properties of the variational cluster approach with respect to the variational parameter space, cluster size, and boundary conditions of the reference system are investigated and discussed for bosonic many-body systems. Specifically, the variational cluster approach is applied to the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model, which exhibits a quantum phase transition from Mott to superfluid phase. In order to benchmark the variational cluster approach, results for the phase boundary delimiting the first Mott lobe are compared with essentially exact density matrix renormalization group data. Furthermore, static quantities, such as the ground state energy and the one-particle density matrix are compared with high-order strong coupling perturbation theory results. For reference systems with open boundary conditions the variational parameter space is extended by an additional variational parameter which allows for a more uniform particle density on the reference system and thus drastically improves the results. It turns out that the variational cluster approach yields accurate results with relatively low computational effort for both spectral as well as static properties of the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model, even at the tip of the first Mott lobe where correlation effects are most pronounced.Comment: 12 pages, 16 figures, minor changes, version as publishe

Polaritonic properties of the Jaynes-Cummings lattice model in two dimensions

Light-matter systems allow to realize a strongly correlated phase where photons are present. In these systems strong correlations are achieved by optical nonlinearities, which appear due to the coupling of photons to atomic-like structures. This leads to intriguing effects, such as the quantum phase transition from the Mott to the superfluid phase. Here, we address the two-dimensional Jaynes-Cummings lattice model. We evaluate the boundary of the quantum phase transition and study polaritonic properties. In order to be able to characterize polaritons, we investigate the spectral properties of both photons as well as two-level excitations. Based on this information we introduce polariton quasiparticles as appropriate wavevector, band index, and filling dependent superpositions of photons and two-level excitations. Finally, we analyze the contributions of the individual constituents to the polariton quasiparticles.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Proceedings of the Conference on Computational Physics CCP, June 2010, Trondheim, Norwa

Scrambling and thermalization in a diffusive quantum many-body system

Out-of-time ordered (OTO) correlation functions describe scrambling of information in correlated quantum matter. They are of particular interest in incoherent quantum systems lacking well defined quasi-particles. Thus far, it is largely elusive how OTO correlators spread in incoherent systems with diffusive transport governed by a few globally conserved quantities. Here, we study the dynamical response of such a system using high-performance matrix-product-operator techniques. Specifically, we consider the non-integrable, one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model in the incoherent high-temperature regime. Our system exhibits diffusive dynamics in time-ordered correlators of globally conserved quantities, whereas OTO correlators display a ballistic, light-cone spreading of quantum information. The slowest process in the global thermalization of the system is thus diffusive, yet information spreading is not inhibited by such slow dynamics. We furthermore develop an experimentally feasible protocol to overcome some challenges faced by existing proposals and to probe time-ordered and OTO correlation functions. Our study opens new avenues for both the theoretical and experimental exploration of thermalization and information scrambling dynamics.Comment: 7+4 pages, 8+3 figures; streamlined versio