Many-Body Localization with Long-Range Interactions

Many-body localization (MBL) has emerged as a powerful paradigm for understanding nonequilibrium quantum dynamics. Folklore based on perturbative arguments holds that MBL arises only in systems with short-range interactions. Here, we advance nonperturbative arguments indicating that MBL can arise in systems with long-range (Coulomb) interactions, through a mechanism we dub “order enabled localization.” In particular, we show using bosonization that MBL can arise in one-dimensional systems with ∼r interactions, a problem that exhibits charge confinement. We also argue that (through the Anderson-Higgs mechanism) MBL can arise in two-dimensional systems with logr interactions, and speculate that our arguments may even extend to three-dimensional systems with 1/r interactions. Our arguments are asymptotic (i.e., valid up to rare region corrections), yet they open the door to investigation of MBL physics in a wide array of long-range interacting systems where such physics was previously believed not to arise.