Anatomy of localisation protected quantum order on Hilbert space

Abstract

Abstract Many-body localised (MBL) phases of disordered, interacting quantum systems allow for exotic localisation protected quantum order in eigenstates at arbitrarily high energy densities. In this work, we analyse the manifestation of such order on the Hilbert-space anatomy of eigenstates. Quantified in terms of non-local Hilbert-spatial correlations of eigenstate amplitudes, we find that the spread of the eigenstates on the Hilbert-space graph is directly related to the order parameters which characterise the localisation protected order, and hence these correlations, in turn, characterise the order or lack thereof. Higher-point eigenstate correlations also characterise the different entanglement structures in the many-body localised phases, with and without order, as well as in the ergodic phase. The results pave the way for characterising the transitions between MBL phases and the ergodic phase in terms of scaling of emergent correlation lengthscales on the Hilbert-space graph.