Extracting many body localization lengths with an imaginary vector potential

Sascha Heußen,1 Christopher David White,2 and Gil Refael1

1
Institute for Quantum Information and Matter and Department of Physics,
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
2
Condensed Matter Theory Center, University of Maryland, College Park, Md, 20742, USA
One challenge of studying the many-body localization transition is defining the length scale that
diverges upon the transition to the ergodic phase. In this manuscript we explore the localization
properties of a ring with onsite disorder subject to an imaginary magnetic flux. We connect the
imaginary flux which delocalizes single-particle orbitals of an Anderson-localized ring with the lo-
calization length of an open chain. We thus identify the delocalizing imaginary flux per site with
the inverse localization length. We put this intuition to use by exploring the phase diagram of a dis-
arXiv:2003.09430v3 [cond-mat.dis-nn] 2 Jun 2020

ordered interacting chain, and find that the inverse imaginary flux per bond provides an accessible
description of the transition and its diverging localization length.

I. INTRODUCTION from the support of the `-bits. But constructing `-bits is

difficult and relies on variants of exact diagonalization,
A large body of evidence shows that one-dimensional Wegner flow or matrix product state methods; moreover,
fermionic quantum systems with both (local) interactions the same physical Hamiltonian can be described in terms
and sufficiently strong disorder will exhibit a cluster of of many di↵erent sets of `-bits. Extracting localization
traits known as many-body localization 1–3 . These include length from `-bits of limited-size systems is therefore, dif-
long-time memory of an initial state, conductance expo- ficult and ambiguous. Nonetheless, Refs. 24–26 succeed
nentially small in length, slow entanglement growth, and in extracting localization length by constructing `-bit op-
near-Poisson level statistics. erators and exploring their decay.
The localization length of single particle orbitals is a In this manuscript we show that exploring the response
standard measure of localization. This notion applies of a system to Non-Hermitian hoppings (namely, to an
to interacting localized systems as well as noninteract- imaginary flux) provides a direct way to address the def-
ing systems. In fact, the localized nature of the many- inition of a localization length. Furthermore, it does not
body localized phase implies that it can be described by a require knowledge of any `-bits properties, and addresses
so-called `-bit Hamiltonian4–6 . The Hamiltonian can be directly the localization length most relevant for trans-
written in terms of mutually commuting single-particle port. We introduce an imaginary vector potential, which
occupation operators ñj with local support as maps to a “tilt”—an asymmetry in the tunneling rates
X X between neighboring lattice sites. While at small tilts
H= Ej ñj + J (2) ñj ñk all eigenvalues of the system’s Hamiltonian remain real,
jk they develop imaginary parts at some critical tilt. We
X (3) argue that the critical tilt of a non-Hermitian system
+ Jj1 j2 j3 ñj1 ñj2 ñj3 . +···
probes the `-bit localization length ⇠l-bit of its zero-tilt
j1 j2 j3
Hermitian limit, while the distribution of points at which
successive eigenvalues develop imaginary parts (“excep-
where the interactions J (n) are presumptively short-
tional points”) probes the `-bit interaction scale Jint . We
ranged. Explicitly constructing the `-bits would fully
show explicitly that the critical tilt in a ring (a chain with
solve the quantum dynamics of a many-body localized
periodic boundary conditions) is the inverse localization
chain; the problem of doing so has attracted much
length of the open chain with the same disorder realiza-
attention.7–11
tion. We use this in order to describe the many-body
The first phenomenological and numerical treatments
localization transition and extract its phase diagram.
of the MBL transition tended to concentrate on entangle-
ment and transport times,12–15 and computed the gap ra- We first introduce our model in Sec. II. We then articu-
tio, the entanglement entropy of eigenstates, or decay of late the connection between critical tilt in a ring and the
local observables.2,3,16–18 But the microscopic avalanche localization length of an open chain in the single-particle
picture19–22 and recent renormalization analysis23 hinge case (in Sec. III A). We then consider generalizations to
on the correlation lengths of perturbatively-constructed the many-particle, non-interacting case (Sec. IV A) and
`-bits. to the interacting case (Sec. IV B), where we show a con-
The most direct way to probe many-body localization, nection between the distribution of exceptional points
however, should be through finding the appropriate local- and the l-bit interaction strength. Finally, in Sec. V
ization length of single particle creation operators. Such we use the critical tilt to map the MBL transition of
a localization length, which is analogous to the Anderson the isotropic random-field Heisenberg model. We find a
localization scale, would be most relevant to transport- phase diagram and critical exponents broadly consistent
related questions. A localization length could be defined with17 . In addition, we see that the MBL regime is reen-