Localization and slow-thermalization in a cluster spin model

Abstract

Novel cluster spin model with interactions and disorder is introduced and studied. In specific type of interactions, we find an extensive number of local integrals of motions (LIOMs), which are a modified version of the stabilizers in quantum information, i.e., mutually commuting operators specifying all quantum states in the system. These LIOMs can be defined for any strength of the interactions and disorder, and are of compact-support instead of exponentially-decaying tail. Hence, even under the presence of interactions, integrability is held, and all energy eigenstates are labeled by these LIOMs and can be explicitly obtained. Integrable dynamics is, then, expected to occur. The compact-support nature of the LIOMs crucially prevents the thermalization and entanglement spreading. We numerically investigate dynamics of the system governed by the existence of the compact-support LIOMs, and clarify the effects of additional interactions, which break the compact-support nature of the LIOMs. There, we find that the ordinary many-body localization behaviors emerge, such as the logarithmic growth of the entanglement entropy in the time evolution. Besides the ergodicity breaking dynamic, we find that symmetry protected topological order preserves for specific states even in the presence of the interactions.

Keywords

• many-body localization
• cluster spin model
• thermalization