Diagnosing non-Hermitian Many-Body Localization and Quantum Chaos via Singular Value Decomposition

Abstract: Strong local disorder in interacting quantum spin chains can turn delocalized eigenmodes into localized eigenstates, giving rise to many-body localized (MBL) phases. This is accompanied by distinct spectral statistics: chaotic for the delocalized phase and integrable for the localized phase. In isolated systems, localization and chaos are defined through a web of relations among eigenvalues, eigenvectors, and real-time dynamics. These may change as the system is made open. We ask whether random dissipation (without random disorder) can induce chaotic or localized behavior in an otherwise integrable system. The dissipation is described using non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, which can effectively be obtained from Markovian dynamics conditioned on null measurement. Through the use of the singular value decomposition and the introduction of new diagnostic tools complementing the singular-value statistics, namely, the singular form factor, the inverse participation ratio, and entanglement entropy for singular vectors, we provide a positive answer. Our method is illustrated in an XXZ Hamiltonian with random local dissipation.