Christopher L. Baldwin
(Michigan State University)
 

Over the past two decades (and beyond), there has been an enormous amount of interest in the question of whether & how strong disorder can impede the "normal" functioning of an isolated many-body system (see the topic of many-body localization). Concurrently, a major topic in mathematical physics has been deriving rigorous speed limits on the spread of correlations/information, as formalized by Lieb-Robinson bounds. In this talk, I summarize our recent work marrying these two fields by quantifying how disorder modifies the conventional speed limits. We consider two cases --- disordered interactions and disordered fields --- specifically for one-dimensional spin chains. For both, we prove that sufficiently strong disorder can modify even the shape of the Lieb-Robinson "light cone", such that ballistic and even diffusive motion becomes impossible.

 

Zoom registration link:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYlcO6grT4iHdcQ9DlkQKcJpADvUnGMUZoJ