Nonlinear Transport by Bethe Bound States.

We consider nonlinear ballistic spin transport in the XXZ spin chain and derive an analytical result for the nonlinear Drude weight D^{(3)} at infinite temperatures. In contrast to the linear Drude weight D^{(1)}, we find that the result not only depends on anisotropy but also on the string length of the quasiparticles transporting the spin current. Our result provides further insights into transport by quasiparticles and raises questions about Luttinger liquid universality.

Exact Real-Time Longitudinal Correlation Functions of the Massive XXZ Chain.

We apply a recently developed thermal form factor expansion method to evaluate the real-time longitudinal spin-spin correlation functions of the spin-1/2 XXZ chain in the antiferromagnetically ordered regime at zero temperature. An analytical result incorporating all types of excitations in the model is obtained, without any approximations. This allows for the accurate calculation of the real-time correlations in this strongly interacting quantum system for arbitrary distances and times.

Evidence for Unbounded Growth of the Number Entropy in Many-Body Localized Phases.

We investigate the number entropy S_{N}-which characterizes particle-number fluctuations between subsystems-following a quench in one-dimensional interacting many-body systems with potential disorder. We find evidence that in the regime which is expected to show many-body localization and where the entanglement entropy grows as S∼lnt as function of time t, the number entropy grows as S_{N}∼lnlnt, indicating continuing subdiffusive particle transport at a very slow rate. We demonstrate that this growth is consistent with a relation between entanglement and number entropy recently established for noninteracting systems.

Unique Spin Vortices and Topological Charges in Quantum Dots with Spin-orbit Couplings.

Spin textures of one or two electrons in a quantum dot with Rashba or Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings reveal several intriguing properties. We show here that even at the single-electron level stable spin vortices with tunable topological charges exist. These topological textures appear in the ground state of the dots. The textures are stabilized by time-reversal symmetry breaking and are robust against the eccentricity of the dot. The topological charge is directly related to the sign of the z component of the spin in a large dot, allowing a direct probe of its topological properties. This would clearly pave the way to possible future topological spintronics. The phenomenon of spin vortices persists for the interacting two-electron dot in the presence of a magnetic field.

Purification and many-body localization in cold atomic gases.

We propose to observe many-body localization in cold atomic gases by realizing a Bose-Hubbard chain with binary disorder and studying its nonequilibrium dynamics. In particular, we show that measuring the difference in occupation between even and odd sites, starting from a prepared density-wave state, provides clear signatures of localization. Furthermore, we confirm as hallmarks of the many-body localized phase a logarithmic increase of the entanglement entropy in time and Poissonian level statistics. Our numerical density-matrix renormalization group calculations for infinite system size are based on a purification approach; this allows us to perform the disorder average exactly, thus producing data without any statistical noise and with maximal simulation times of up to a factor 10 longer than in the clean case.

Closed and open system dynamics in a fermionic chain with a microscopically specified bath: relaxation and thermalization.

We study thermalization in a one-dimensional quantum system consisting of a noninteracting fermionic chain with each site of the chain coupled to an additional bath site. Using a density matrix renormalization group algorithm we investigate the time evolution of the observables in the chain after a quantum quench. For low densities we show that the intermediate time dynamics can be quantitatively described by a system of coupled equations of motion. For higher densities our numerical results show a prethermalization for the local observables at intermediate times and a full thermalization to the grand canonical ensemble at long times. For the case of a weak bath-chain coupling we find, in particular, a Fermi momentum distribution in the chain in equilibrium in spite of the seemingly oversimplified bath in our model.

Thermally activated Peierls dimerization in ferromagnetic spin chains.

We demonstrate that a Peierls dimerization can occur in ferromagnetic spin chains activated by thermal fluctuations. The dimer order parameter and entanglement measures are studied as functions of the modulation of the magnetic exchange interaction and temperature, using a spin-wave theory and the density-matrix renormalization group. We discuss the case where a periodic modulation is caused by spin-phonon coupling and the case where electronic states effectively induce such a modulation. The importance of the latter for a number of transition metal oxides is highlighted.