Emergence of anomalous dynamics from the underlying singular continuous spectrum in interacting many-body systems

Abstract

We investigate the dynamical properties of an interacting many-body system with a non-trivial energy potential landscape that may induce a singular continuous single-particle energy spectrum. Focusing on the Aubry-Andr\'e model, whose anomalous transport properties in presence of interaction has recently been demonstrated experimentally in an ultracold gas setup, we discuss the anomalous slowing down of the dynamics it exhibits and show that it emerges from the singular-continuous nature of the single-particle excitation spectrum. Our study demonstrates that singular-continuous spectra can be found in interacting systems, unlike previously conjectured by treating the interactions in the mean-field approximation. This, in turns, also highlights the importance of the many-body correlations in giving rise to anomalous dynamics, which, in many-body systems, can result from a non-trivial interplay between geometry and interactions.