Regensburg 2019 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help

DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 11: Focus Session: Quantum Dynamics of Kinetically Constrained Many-Body Systems (joint session TT/DY)

DY 11.4: Invited Talk

Tuesday, April 2, 2019, 11:15–11:45, H2

Many-body localization dynamics from gauge invariance — •Markus Heyl — Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Nöthnitzer Str. 38, 01187 Dresden, Germany

In this talk I will show how lattice gauge theories can display many-body localization dynamics in the absence of disorder as a consequence of local constraints induced by gauge invariance. The starting point is the observation that, for some generic homogeneous initial conditions, the time-evolved state can be decomposed into different superselection sectors as a consequence of Gauss law in such a way that it realizes an effective disorder average. By carrying out extensive exact simulations on the real-time dynamics of a lattice Schwinger model, describing the coupling between U(1) gauge fields and staggered fermions, it is shown that the dynamics can become nonergodic leading to a slow, double-logarithmic entanglement growth. These findings are immediately relevant to cold atoms and trapped ion experiments realizing dynamical gauge fields and suggest a new and universal link between confinement and entanglement dynamics in the many-body localized phase of lattice models.