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  • PhysRevLett.115.046603

    Rights statement: © 2015 American Physical Society

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Many-body localization characterized from a one-particle perspective

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Article number046603
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>24/07/2015
<mark>Journal</mark>Physical review letters
Issue number4
Volume115
Number of pages5
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

We show that the one-particle density matrix ρ can be used to characterize the interaction-driven many-body localization transition in closed fermionic systems. The natural orbitals (the eigenstates of ρ) are localized in the many-body localized phase and spread out when one enters the delocalized phase, while the occupation spectrum (the set of eigenvalues of ρ) reveals the distinctive Fock-space structure of the many-body eigenstates, exhibiting a steplike discontinuity in the localized phase. The associated one-particle occupation entropy is small in the localized phase and large in the delocalized phase, with diverging fluctuations at the transition. We analyze the inverse participation ratio of the natural orbitals and find that it is independent of system size in the localized phase.