General theory of many body localized systems coupled to baths

Understand

We consider what happens when a many body localized system is coupled to a heat bath.

• Unlike previous works, we do not restrict ourselves to the limit where the bath is large and effectively Markovian, nor to the limit where back action on the bath is negligible.
• We identify limits where the effect of the bath can be captured by classical noise, and limits where it cannot.
• We also identify limits in which the bath delocalizes the system, as well as limits in which the system localizes the bath.