Breakdown of ergodicity in disordered U(1) lattice gauge theories

Abstract

We show how U(1) lattice gauge theories display key signatures of ergodicity breaking in the presence of a random charge background. We argue that, in such gauge theories, there is a cooperative effect of disorder and interactions in favoring ergodicity breaking: This is due to the confining nature of the Coulomb potential, which suppresses the number of available energy resonances at all distances. Such a cooperative mechanism reflects into very modest finite-volume effects: This allows us to draw a sharp boundary for the ergodic regime, and thus the breakdown of quantum chaos for sufficiently strong gauge couplings, at system sizes accessible via exact diagonalization. Our conclusions are independent on the value of a background topological angle, and are contrasted with a gauge theory with truncated Hilbert space, where instead we observe very strong finite-volume effects akin to those observed in spin chains.