English

Quantum Avalanche Stability of Many-Body Localization with Power-Law Interactions

Disordered Systems and Neural Networks 2026-01-21 v1 Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

We investigate the stability of the many-body localized phase against quantum avalanche instabilities in a one-dimensional Heisenberg spin chain with long-range power-law interactions (VrαV\propto r^{-\alpha}). By combining exact diagonalization of static properties with Lindblad master equation simulations of open-system dynamics, we systematically map the interplay between interaction range and disorder strength. Our finite-size scaling analysis of entanglement entropy identifies a critical interaction exponent αc2\alpha_c \approx 2, which separates a fragile regime, characterized by an exponentially diverging critical disorder, from a robust short-range regime. To rigorously test the system's resistance to avalanches, we couple the boundary to an infinite-temperature bath and track the propagation of the thermalization front into the localized bulk. We find that the characteristic thermalization time follows a unified scaling law, Trthexp[κ(α)LW]T_{r_{\text{th}}} \sim \exp[\kappa(\alpha) LW] (herein, LL is the system size, and WW is the disorder intensity), which diverges exponentially with the product of system size and disorder strength. This suppression enables the derivation of a quantitative stability criterion, Wstab(α)W_{\text{stab}}(\alpha), representing the minimum critical disorder strength required to maintain avalanche stability. Our results confirm that the MBL phase remains asymptotically stable in the thermodynamic limit when disorder exceeds an interaction-dependent threshold, bridging theoretical debates on long-range MBL and providing a roadmap for observing these dynamics in experimental platforms such as Rydberg atom arrays.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.13485,
  title  = {Quantum Avalanche Stability of Many-Body Localization with Power-Law Interactions},
  author = {Longhui Shen and Bin Guo and Zhaoyu Sun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.13485},
  year   = {2026}
}