Two-dimensional many-body localized systems coupled to a heat bath

Abstract

We numerically investigate the effect of coupling a two-dimensional many-body localized system to a finite heat bath, using shallow quantum circuits as a variational ansatz. Specifically, we simulate optical lattice experiments with two components of ultracold bosons, where only one species is subject to a random disorder potential and the other acts as a heat bath. We obtain a filling fraction dependent phase diagram with a critical filling consistent with experiments. We also calculate two-point correlation functions and the quantum mutual information between sites. We observe a distribution of the quantum mutual information in the many-body localized regime which is consistent with the presence of resonances, similar to those observed in one-dimensional many-body localized systems.