In Many-body localized (MBL) systems disorder and interactions cooperate to create non-thermal state of matter. This means that, even if initialized in a high energy, out of equilibrium state, the system fails to reach thermodynamic equilibrium. Using the trapped-ion quantum simulator at JQI, we surprisingly find that MBL can be realized also in disorder-free systems featuring a very large gradient. A new phenomenon called Stark MBL.

• Observation of Stark many-body localization without disorder:
  W. Morong, F. Liu, P. Becker, K. S. Collins, L. Feng, A. Kyprianidis, G. Pagano, T. You, A. V. Gorshkov, C. Monroe, Nature 599, 393 (2021).
• Rice News Press Release