Dynamics of quantum many-body systems in the absence of spatial reflection symmetry

Objective

Understanding the dynamical response of many-body quantum mechanical systems to external perturbations is one of the central questions in condensed matter physics. Over the past decade, it has been observed that symmetries can play an important role in the universal aspects of a system's dynamical properties. In this direction, a question that has not received much attention, and thus remains to be answered, is about the effects of spatial translation symmetry. Our recent results have shown that such systems can show ballistic dynamics, even in the absence of integrability. Therefore, the goal of this proposal is to perform a more systematic study of the effects of P-symmetry breaking in one-dimensional quantum many-body systems, and the interplay between P-symmetry and other symmetries and constraints, that are known to affect dynamics in P-symmetric models.