Breaking the Entanglement-Structure Trade-off: Many-Body Localization Protects Emergent Holographic Geometry in Random Tensor Networks
Abstract
We present a systematic numerical investigation of the "entanglement geometry gravity" chain in random tensor networks (RTN) established by the ER EPR conjecture and Jacobson's thermodynamic derivation. First, we verify the kinematic foundation: the entanglement first law (slope=1.000), the encoding of geometry by mutual information (correlation=0.92), and the locality of holographic perturbations (3.3x). We also confirm that gravitational dynamics (JT gravity) does not emerge, identifying a sharp kinematics-dynamics boundary. Second, and more importantly, we discover that many-body localization (MBL) is the mechanism that protects emergent holographic geometry from thermalization. Replacing Haar-random evolution (geometry lifetime ) with an XXZ Hamiltonian plus on-site disorder, we observe a finite-size crossover at disorder strength above which mutual-information-lattice correlations persist indefinitely ( for ). We map the full parameter space: the optimal regime is a near-Ising anisotropy with yielding (confirmed by a fine scan over ); only holographic (RTN) initial states sustain geometry, while product, N\'eel, and Bell-pair states do not. MBL preserves the spatial structure of entanglement (adjacent/non-adjacent MI ratio ~2.6-4.2x vs. 1.0x in the thermal phase), rather than its total amount. A comparison with classical cellular automata reveals that MBL uniquely breaks the entanglement-structure trade-off imposed by quantum monogamy: classical systems achieve spatial structure only at the cost of negligible mutual information, while MBL sustains both.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2604.04596,
title = {Breaking the Entanglement-Structure Trade-off: Many-Body Localization Protects Emergent Holographic Geometry in Random Tensor Networks},
author = {Zhihua Liang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.04596},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
9 pages, 6 figures, 9 tables