On anomalous Lieb-Robinson bounds for the Fibonacci XY chain (Q329705)

Summary: We rigorously prove a new kind of anomalous (or sub-ballistic) Lieb-Robinson bound for the isotropic XY chain with Fibonacci external magnetic field at arbitrary coupling. It is anomalous in that the usual exponential decay in \(|x|-v|t|\) is replaced by exponential decay in \(|x|-v|t|^\alpha\) with \(0<\alpha<1\). In fact, we can characterize the values of \(\alpha\) for which such a bound holds as those exceeding \(\alpha_u^+\), the upper transport exponent of the one-body Fibonacci Hamiltonian. Following the approach of [\textit{E. Hamza} et al., Commun. Math. Phys. 315, No. 1, 215--239 (2012; Zbl 1253.82048)], we relate Lieb-Robinson bounds to dynamical bounds for the one-body Hamiltonian corresponding to the XY chain via the Jordan-Wigner transformation; in our case the one-body Hamiltonian with Fibonacci potential. We can bound its dynamics by adapting techniques developed in [the first author et al., J. Am. Math. Soc. 20, No. 3, 799--827 (2007; Zbl 1114.81036); J. Funct. Anal. 255, No. 10, 2872--2887 (2008; Zbl 1153.81011); J. Math. Anal. Appl. 303, No. 1, 327--341 (2005; Zbl 1077.81039); ``The Fibonacci Hamiltonian'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1403.7823}] to our purposes. To our knowledge, this is the first rigorous derivation of anomalous quantum many-body transport. { }Along the way, we prove a new result about the one-body Fibonacci Hamiltonian: the upper transport exponent agrees with the time-averaged upper transport exponent, see Corollary 2.9. We also explain why our method does not extend to yield anomalous Lieb-Robinson bounds of power-law type for the random dimer model.