Energy transport in disordered classical spin chains

TL;DR

This study numerically investigates energy diffusion in highly disordered classical spin chains, revealing significant suppression of transport due to disorder and no evidence of a classical many-body localization transition.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed numerical analysis of energy transport suppression and the absence of localization transition in disordered classical spin systems.

Findings

Disorder reduces the diffusion constant by several orders of magnitude.

No signs of a classical many-body localization transition were observed.

Energy transport is strongly suppressed by moderate disorder.

Abstract

We present a numerical study of the diffusion of energy at high temperature in strongly disordered chains of interacting classical spins evolving deterministically. We find that quenched randomness strongly suppresses transport, with the diffusion constant becoming reduced by several orders of magnitude upon the introduction of moderate disorder. We have also looked for but not found signs of a classical many-body localization transition at any nonzero strength of the spin-spin interactions.