Disorder in quantum many-body systems

TL;DR

Disorder in quantum many-body systems can both hinder and enable novel quantum phenomena, affecting phase stability and leading to unique phases like many-body localization and quantum Griffiths phases.

Contribution

This review clarifies how different types of disorder influence phase stability and the nature of quantum phase transitions in many-body systems.

Findings

Disorder can destabilize symmetry-broken phases.

Quantum Griffiths phases emerge near disordered quantum critical points.

Disorder effects depend on the type and strength of randomness.

Abstract

Impurities, defects, and other types of imperfections are ubiquitous in realistic quantum many-body systems and essentially unavoidable in solid state materials. Often, such random disorder is viewed purely negatively as it is believed to prevent interesting new quantum states of matter from forming and to smear out sharp features associated with the phase transitions between them. However, disorder is also responsible for a variety of interesting novel phenomena that do not have clean counterparts. These include Anderson localization of single particle wave functions, many-body localization in isolated many-body systems, exotic quantum critical points, and "glassy" ground state phases. This brief review focuses on two separate but related subtopics in this field. First, we review under what conditions different types of randomness affect the stability of symmetry-broken low-temperature phases in quantum many-body systems and the stability of the corresponding phase transitions. Second, we discuss the fate of quantum phase transitions that are destabilized by disorder as well as the unconventional quantum Griffiths phases that emerge in their vicinity.