Seminars & Colloquia Calendar

Abstract:  To sharply define a phase transition, usually one has to take the combined limits of infinite system size and infinite time.  For thermodynamic phase transitions one takes the limit of infinite system size in a way that respects thermodynamics: namely, the thermodynamic limit.  But the many-body localization (MBL) phase transition is not a thermodynamic phase transition, so we are not required to take the usual thermodynamic limit when we define the MBL phase transition.  Upon considering the MBL phase transition in a variety of cases, varying the range of the interactions and the dimensionality of space, we find three rather different regimes of this phase transition, each of which requires a different way of taking the limits of infinite system size and infinite time in its definition.  

 

Reference:  S. Gopalakrishnan and D. A. Huse, arXiv:1901.04505.

THERE WILL BE A BROWN BAG LUNCH