Transient and persistent particle subdiffusion in a disordered chain coupled to bosons

Abstract: We consider the propagation of a single particle in a random chain, assisted by the coupling to dispersive bosons. Time evolution treated with rate equations for hopping between localized states reveals a qualitative difference between dynamics due to noninteracting bosons and hard-core bosons. In the first case the transient dynamics is subdiffusive, but multi-boson processes allow for long-time normal diffusion, while hard-core effects suppress multi-boson processes leading to persistent subdiffusive transport, consistent with numerical results for a full many-body evolution. In contrast, analogous study for a quasiperiodic potential reveals a stable long-time diffusion.