Kinetic Theory of Spin Diffusion and Superdiffusion in XXZ Spin Chains

Sarang Gopalakrishnan, Romain Vasseur

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164 Scopus citations

Abstract

We address the nature of spin transport in the integrable XXZ spin chain, focusing on the isotropic Heisenberg limit. We calculate the diffusion constant using a kinetic picture based on generalized hydrodynamics combined with Gaussian fluctuations: we find that it diverges, and show that a self-consistent treatment of this divergence gives superdiffusion, with an effective time-dependent diffusion constant that scales as D(t)∼t1/3. This exponent had previously been observed in large-scale numerical simulations, but had not been theoretically explained. We briefly discuss XXZ models with easy-axis anisotropy Δ>1. Our method gives closed-form expressions for the diffusion constant D in the infinite-temperature limit for all Δ>1. We find that D saturates at large anisotropy, and diverges as the Heisenberg limit is approached, as D∼(Δ-1)-1/2.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number127202
JournalPhysical review letters
Volume122
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 26 2019

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Physics and Astronomy

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