Localization-delocalization transition in the dynamics of dipolar-coupled nuclear-spins

GONZALO A. ALVAREZ; DIETER SUTER; ROBIN KAISER

SCIENCE

AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE

Año: 2015 vol. 349 p. 846 - 848

0036-8075

Non-equilibrium dynamics of many-body systems are important in many scientific fields. Here we report the experimental observation of a phase transition of the quantum coherent dynamics of a 3D many-spin system with dipolar interactions. Using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) on a solid-state system of spins at room-temperature, we quench the interaction Hamiltonian to drive the evolution of the system. Depending on the quench strength, we then observe either localized or extended dynamics of the system coherence. We extract the critical exponents for the localized cluster size of correlated spins and diffusion coefficient around the phase transition separating the localized from the delocalized dynamical regime. These results show that NMR techniques are well-suited to studying the non-equilibrium dynamics of complex many-body systems.