Quantum quenches and many-body localization in the thermodynamic limit

TL;DR

This paper investigates the transition from thermalization to many-body localization in a disordered 1D hard-core boson system, using advanced numerical methods to demonstrate the existence of a localized phase in the thermodynamic limit.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining thermalization indicators and numerical linked cluster expansions to study many-body localization in the thermodynamic limit.

Findings

Localization transition aligns with level statistics analysis.

Momentum distribution indicates freezing of correlations after quenches.

Supports the existence of a many-body localized phase in the thermodynamic limit.

Abstract

We use thermalization indicators and numerical linked cluster expansions to probe the onset of many-body localization in a disordered one-dimensional hard-core boson model in the thermodynamic limit. We show that after equilibration following a quench from a delocalized state, the momentum distribution indicates a freezing of one-particle correlations at higher values than in thermal equilibrium. The position of the delocalization to localization transition, identified by the breakdown of thermalization with increasing disorder strength, is found to be consistent with the value from the level statistics obtained via full exact diagonalization of finite chains. Our results strongly support the existence of a many-body localized phase in the thermodynamic limit.