Does a distinct quasi many-body localized phase exist? A numerical study of a translationally invariant system in the thermodynamic limit

We consider a quench in an infinite spin ladder describing a system with two species of bosons in the limit of strong interactions. If the heavy bosonic species has infinite mass the model becomes a spin chain with quenched binary disorder which shows true Anderson localization (AL) or many-body localization (MBL). For finite hopping amplitude J′ of the heavy particles, on the other hand, we find an exponential polarization decay with a relaxation rate which depends monotonically on J′. Furthermore, the entanglement entropy changes from a constant (AL) or logarithmic (MBL) scaling in time t for J′=0 to a sub-ballistic power-law, Sent∼tα with α<1, for finite J′. We do not find a distinct regime in time where the dynamics for J′≠0 shows the characteristics of an MBL phase. Instead, we discover a time regime with distinct dephasing and entanglement times, different both from a localized and a fully ergodic phase.