Memory effects in the density-wave imbalance in delocalized disordered systems

Abstract

Dynamics of the imbalance in occupations on even and odd sites of a lattice serves as one of the key characteristics for identification of the many-body localization transition. In this work, we investigate the long-time behaviour of the imbalance in disordered one- and two-dimensional many-body systems in the regime of diffusive or subdiffusive transport. We show that memory effects originating from a coupling between slow and fast modes lead to a power-law decay of the imbalance, with the exponent determined by the diffusive (or subdiffusive) transport law and the spatial dimensionality. Analytical results are supported by numerical simulations performed on a two-dimensional system in the regime of weak localization.