Slow scrambling in disordered quantum systems
Abstract
In this work we study the effect of static disorder on the growth of commutators - a probe of information scrambling in quantum many-body systems - in a variety of contexts. We find generically that disorder slows the onset of scrambling and, in the case of a many-body localized (MBL) state, partially halts it. In the MBL state, we show using a fixed point Hamiltonian that operators exhibit slow logarithmic growth under time evolution and compare the result with the expected growth of commutators in (de)localized noninteracting disordered models. Finally, using a scaling argument, we state a conjecture on the growth of commutators in a weakly interacting diffusive metal. © 2017 American Physical Society.
Date Published
Journal
Physical Review B
Volume
95
Issue
6
URL
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85014510831&doi=10.1103%2fPhysRevB.95.060201&partnerID=40&md5=d6d3007edd8d20741bf752243484c511
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevB.95.060201
Research Area
Group (Lab)
Debanjan Chowdhury Group