Disordered spin systems

Disorder is present in many natural systems from glasses and amorphous solids to social networks with seemingly random connections. Such systems often show surprising emergent dynamical effects. In the realm of quantum many-body systems disorder can lead to hierarchical relaxation and glassy behavior. We study relaxation dynamics and transport in quantum spin systems where the inter-particle interactions are to some degree random. Such systems can be realized by cold atoms excited to Rydberg states. In these highly excited states the atoms interact via strong dipole-dipole interactions. We model these systems numerically and try to come up with new ways for experimentally probing their properties.