Role of flavor degrees of freedom in quantum simulations of disorder-free localization

Quantum Physics arXiv:2607.26156 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 28 Jul 2026] Title:Role of flavor degrees of freedom in quantum simulations of disorder-free localization Authors:Yizhuo Tian, Jared Jeyaretnam, Tanmay Bhore, Zlatko Papić, Jad C. Halimeh View a PDF of the paper titled Role of flavor degrees of freedom in quantum simulations of disorder-free localization, by Yizhuo Tian and 4 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:A recent \texttt{Google Quantum AI} experiment [\href{this https URL}{Gyawali \textit{et al.}, Science \textbf{393}, 71 (2026)}] has exploited quantum parallelism to emulate disorder-averaged many-body dynamics, with conserved local degrees of freedom generating an effective disorder potential. We investigate how the local spectrum of these static variables controls localization in a flavor-extended ${\mathbb Z}_2$ lattice gauge theory, which maps onto a mixed-field Ising chain with $n$-level bond disorder. Combining finite-size spectral and entanglement diagnostics with infinite matrix-product state dynamics, we find a qualitative distinction between binary and multilevel disorder. For $n=2$, apparent localization ultimately gives way to thermalization; the long-lived transient arises from energy-scale separation, degenerate spectral towers, and approximate Hilbert-space fragmentation. By contrast, $n=4$ displays consistent localization signatures, including Poissonian level statistics, area-law eigenstate entanglement, nonthermal entanglement spectra, and persistent local memory over accessible times in the thermodynamic limit. Our results show that, despite its larger variance, binary disorder lacks the local amplitude diversity needed to suppress resonances. Thus, localization is governed not simply by disorder strength, but by the local disorder spectrum and the resulting resonant connectivity of the many-body Hilbert space. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas); Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech); Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el); High Energy Physics - Lattice (hep-lat) Cite as: arXiv:2607.26156 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2607.26156v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2607.26156 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Jad C. Halimeh [view email] [v1] Tue, 28 Jul 2026 18:02:00 UTC (6,055 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Role of flavor degrees of freedom in quantum simulations of disorder-free localization, by Yizhuo Tian and 4 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-07 Change to browse by: cond-mat cond-mat.quant-gas cond-mat.stat-mech cond-mat.str-el hep-lat References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)