Stable interaction-induced Anderson-like localization embedded in standing waves

Abstract

We uncover the interaction-induced \emph{stable self-localization} of few bosons in finite-size disorder-free superlattices. In these nonthermalized multi-particle states, one of the particles forms a superposition of multiple standing waves, so that it provides a quasi-random potential to localize the other particles. We derive effective Hamiltonians for self-localized states and find their energy level spacings obeying the Poisson statistics. The spatial distribution of the localized particles decays exponentially, which is refered to Anderson-like localization. Surprisingly, we find that the correlated self-localization can be solely induced by interaction in the well-studied Bose-Hubbard models, which has been overlooked for a long time. We propose a dynamical scheme to detect self-localization, where long-time quantum walks of a single particle form a superposition of multiple standing waves for trapping the subsequently loaded particles. Our work provides an experimentally feasible way to realize stable Anderson-like localization in translation-invariant disorder-free few-body systems.