Percolation in Fock space as a proxy for many-body localisation

Abstract

We study classical percolation models in Fock space as proxies for the quantum many-body localisation (MBL) transition. Percolation rules are defined for two models of disordered quantum spin-chains using their microscopic quantum Hamiltonians and the topologies of the associated Fock-space graphs. The percolation transition is revealed by the statistics of Fock-space cluster sizes, obtained by exact enumeration for finite-sized systems. As a function of disorder strength, the typical cluster size shows a transition from a volume law in Fock space to sub-volume law, directly analogous to the behaviour of eigenstate participation entropies across the MBL transition. Finite-size scaling analyses for several diagnostics of cluster size statistics yield mutually consistent critical properties. We show further that local observables averaged over Fock-space clusters also carry signatures of the transition, with their behaviour across it in direct analogy to that of corresponding eigenstate expectation values across the MBL transition. The Fock-space clusters can be explored under a mapping to kinetically constrained models. Dynamics within this framework likewise show the ergodicity-breaking transition via Monte Carlo averaged local observables, and yield critical properties consistent with those obtained from both exact cluster enumeration and analytic results derived in our recent work [arXiv:1812.05115]. This mapping allows access to system sizes two orders of magnitude larger than those accessible in exact enumerations. Simple physical pictures based on freezing of local real-space segments of spins are also presented, and shown to give values for the critical disorder strength and correlation length exponent $\nu$ consistent with numerical studies.

17 pages, 15 figures

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Dynamical phases in a "multifractal" Rosenzweig-Porter model
• Fock-space anatomy of eigenstates across the many-body localisation transition
• Exact solution of a percolation analogue for the many-body localisation transition
• Effects of Peierls phases in open linear chains
• Quantum metamorphism
• Anatomy of localisation protected quantum order on Hilbert space
• Heat percolation in many-body flatband localizing systems