IQIM Postdoctoral and Graduate Student Seminar

Abstract: Strong disorder dramatically reshapes quantum dynamics, yet the concrete extent of this effect for interacting systems has remained unclear, especially in dimension greater than one. In this seminar, I will discuss a new approach to rigorously bound the spread of quantum correlations in commuting, disordered systems perturbed by local interactions. This approach revolves around an extension of Lieb-Robinson bounds, a central tool in mathematical many-body physics which establishes an emergent light cone in interacting many-body quantum systems. Leveraging recently developed mathematical techniques, we formulate a "Lieb-Robinson theorem for disordered systems." This theorem demonstrates the existence of the conjectured prethermal many-body localized regime, characterized by logarithmically slow spreading of entanglement, up to non-perturbatively long time scales in any dimension. Surprisingly, our results also prove that disorder has a drastic effect on dynamics even far past the prethermal timescale, constraining the velocity of information propagation beyond all orders of perturbation theory.

Following the talk, lunch will be provided on the lawn outside East Bridge.