Slow dynamics of the Fredkin spin chain

Abstract: The dynamical behavior of a quantum many-particle system is characterized by the lifetime of its excitations. When the system is perturbed, observables of any non-conserved quantity decay exponentially, but those of a conserved quantity relax to equilibrium with a power law. Such processes are associated with a dynamical exponent $z$ that relates the spread of correlations in space and time. We present numerical results for the Fredkin model, a quantum spin chain with a three-body interaction term, which exhibits an unusually large dynamical exponent. We discuss our efforts to produce a reliable estimate $z$=3.16(1) through direct simulation of the quantum evolution and to explain the slow dynamics in terms of an excited bond that executes a constrained random walk in Monte Carlo time.