Universal Freezing Transitions of Dipole-Conserving Chains

Abstract

We argue for the existence of a universal phase diagram of $k$-local quantum chains subject to the conservation of a total charge and its dipole moment, which exhibits "freezing" transitions between strongly and weakly Hilbert space fragmented phases as charge filling $\nu$ is varied. We show that these continuous phase transitions occur at a critical charge filling of $\nu_c=(k-2)^{-1}$ independently of the on-site Hilbert space dimension $d$. To this end, we analytically prove that for any $d$, any state for $\nu<\nu_c$ hosts a finite density of sites belonging to "blockages": local regions across which transport of charge and dipole moment cannot occur. We prove that this implies strong fragmentation of typical symmetry sectors into Krylov sectors that each form an exponentially-vanishing fraction of the total sector. By studying the distribution of blockages we analytically characterise how typical states are subdivided into dynamically-disconnected local "active bubbles", and prove that typical states at these charge fillings exhibit area-law entanglement scaling, with rare "inverse quantum many-body scar" states featuring non-area-law scaling. We then numerically show that for $\nu>\nu_c$ and arbitrary $d$, typical symmetry sectors are weakly fragmented, with their dominant Krylov sectors constituted of states that are free of blockages. We also study the critical scaling of the dimensions of various Krylov sectors at $\nu=\nu_c$, as well as investigate the properties of certain special case models for which no phase transitions occur.

Locations

• arXiv (Cornell University) - View - PDF