Many-body critical phase in a quasiperiodic chain and dynamical Widom lines in Fock-space properties
Phys. Rev. B 112, 155120 – Published 9 October, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/xc8b-yzx8
Abstract
We study a quasiperiodic model in one dimension, namely the extended Aubry-André-Harper (EAAH) chain, that realizes a critical phase comprising entirely single-particle critical states in the noninteracting limit. In the presence of short-range interactions, the noninteracting critical phase transforms to a many-body critical (MBC) phase, separated by lines of MBC-ergodic, MBC-many-body localized (MBL) and ergodic-MBL phase transitions that meet at a triple point. We elucidate the unusual characteristics of the MBC phase compared to the ergodic and MBL phases through the localization properties of the excitations in real space and Fock space (FS), and the eigenstate inverse participation ratio (IPR). We show that the MBC phase, like the MBL phase, is well described by a multifractal scaling of the IPR and a linear finite-size scaling ansatz near the transition to the ergodic and MBL phases. However, the MBC phase, at the same time, exhibits delocalization of all single-particle excitations and a system-size-dependent Fock-space localization length, analogous to the ergodic phase. Remarkably, we find evidence of unusual Widom lines on the phase diagram in the form of lines of pronounced peaks or dips in the FS localization properties inside the MBC and MBL phases. These Widom lines either emerge as a continuation of the precursor phase transition line terminating at the triple point, or originate from a phase boundary.
