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arXiv · 2304.12957

Dynamical localization transition of string breaking in quantum spin chains

Roberto Verdel·Guo-Yi Zhu·Markus Heyl
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Abstract

The fission of a string connecting two charges is an astounding phenomenon in confining gauge theories. The dynamics of this process have been studied intensively in recent years, with plenty of numerical results yielding a dichotomy: the confining string can decay relatively fast or persist up to extremely long times. Here, we put forward a dynamical localization transition as the mechanism underlying this dichotomy. To this end, we derive an effective string breaking description in the light-meson sector of a confined spin chain and show that the problem can be regarded as a dynamical localization transition in Fock space. Fast and suppressed string breaking dynamics are identified with delocalized and localized behavior, respectively. We then provide a further reduction of the dynamical string breaking problem onto a quantum impurity model, where the string is represented as an "impurity" immersed in a meson bath. It is shown that this model features a localization-delocalization transition, giving a general and simple physical basis to understand the qualitatively distinct string breaking regimes. These findings are directly relevant for a wider class of confining lattice models in any dimension and could be realized on present-day Rydberg quantum simulators.

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Roberto Verdel, Guo-Yi Zhu, Markus Heyl. 2023-12-08. Dynamical localization transition of string breaking in quantum spin chains. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.131.230402

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