Accessing Many-Body Localized States through the Generalized Gibbs Ensemble

Inglis, Stephen and Pollet, Lode (2016): Accessing Many-Body Localized States through the Generalized Gibbs Ensemble. In: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 117, No. 12, 120402

Abstract

We show how the thermodynamic properties of large many-body localized systems can be studied using quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We devise a heuristic way of constructing local integrals of motion of high quality, which are added to the Hamiltonian in conjunction with Lagrange multipliers. The ground state simulation of the shifted Hamiltonian corresponds to a high-energy state of the original Hamiltonian in the case of exactly known local integrals of motion. The inevitable mixing between eigenstates as a consequence of nonperfect integrals of motion is weak enough such that the characteristics of many-body localized systems are not averaged out, unlike the standard ensembles of statistical mechanics. Our method paves the way to study higher dimensions and indicates that a fully many-body localized phase in 2D, where (nearly) all eigenstates are localized, is likely to exist.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Physics
• Subjects: 500 Science > 530 Physics
• ISSN: 0031-9007
• Language: English