Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament de Física, Wang, Ding-Zu, Zhu, Hao, Cui, Jian, Argüello Luengo, Javier, Lewenstein, Maciej, Zhang, Guo-Feng, Sierant, Piotr, Ran, Shi-Ju, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament de Física, Wang, Ding-Zu, Zhu, Hao, Cui, Jian, Argüello Luengo, Javier, Lewenstein, Maciej, Zhang, Guo-Feng, Sierant, Piotr, and Ran, Shi-Ju
The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) is a successful theory that establishes the criteria for ergodicity and thermalization in isolated quantum many-body systems. In this work, we investigate the thermalization properties of a spin-1/2 XXZ chain with linearly inhomogeneous interactions. We demonstrate that introduction of the inhomogeneous interactions leads to an onset of quantum chaos and thermalization, which, however, becomes inhibited for sufficiently strong inhomogeneity. To exhibit ETH, and to display its breakdown upon varying the strength of interactions, we probe statistics of energy levels and properties of matrix elements of local observables in eigenstates of the inhomogeneous XXZ spin chain. Moreover, we investigate the dynamics of the entanglement entropy and the survival probability which further evidence the thermalization and its breakdown in the considered model. We outline a way to experimentally realize the XXZ chain with linearly inhomogeneous interactions in systems of ultracold atoms. Our results highlight a mechanism of emergence of ETH due to insertion of inhomogeneities in an otherwise integrable system and illustrate the arrest of quantum dynamics in the presence of strong interactions., This work was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2021YFA1402001), NSFC (Grants No. 12004266, No. 11834014, No. 12074027, and No. 12375007), the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. 1232025), and the Academy for Multidisciplinary Studies, Capital Normal University. J.A., M.L., and P.S. acknowledge support from the following: ERC AdG NOQIA; MCIN/AEI (PGC2018-0910.13039/501100011033, CEX2019-000910-S/10.13039/501100011033, Plan National FIDEUA PID2019-106901GB-I00, Plan National STAMEENA PID2022-139099NB-I00 project funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the “European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR” (PRTR-C17.I1), FPI); QUANTERA MAQS PCI2019-111828-2); QUANTERA DYNAMITE PCI2022-132919 (QuantERA II Programme cofunded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme under Grant Agreement No. 101017733), Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation of the Spanish Government through the QUANTUM ENIA project call–Quantum Spain project, and by the European Union through the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan–NextGenerationEU within the framework of the Digital Spain 2026 Agenda; Fundació Cellex; Fundació Mir-Puig; Generalitat de Catalunya (European Social Fund FEDER and CERCA program, AGAUR Grant No. 2021 SGR 01452, QuantumCAT U16-011424, cofunded by ERDF Operational Program of Catalonia 2014–2020); Barcelona Supercomputing Center MareNostrum (FI-2023-1-0013); EU Quantum Flagship (PASQuanS2.1, 101113690); EU Horizon 2020 FET-OPEN OPTOlogic (Grant No. 899794); EU Horizon Europe Program (Grant Agreement No. 101080086–NeQST), ICFO Internal “QuantumGaudi” project; European Union’s Horizon 2020 program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 847648; “La Caixa” Junior Leaders fellowships, “La Caixa” Foundation (ID No. 100010434): CF/BQ/PR23/11980043., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (published version)