Kinetic Theory of Spin Diffusion and Superdiffusion in <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>X</mml:mi><mml:mi>X</mml:mi><mml:mi>Z</mml:mi></mml:math> Spin Chains

We address the nature of spin transport in the integrable XXZ spin chain, focusing on the isotropic Heisenberg limit. We calculate the diffusion constant using a kinetic picture based on generalized hydrodynamics combined with Gaussian fluctuations: we find that it diverges, and show that a self-consistent treatment of this divergence gives superdiffusion, with an effective time-dependent diffusion constant that scales as D(t)∼t^{1/3}. This exponent had previously been observed in large-scale numerical simulations, but had not been theoretically explained. We briefly discuss XXZ models with easy-axis anisotropy Δ>1. Our method gives closed-form expressions for the diffusion constant D in the infinite-temperature limit for all Δ>1. We find that D saturates at large anisotropy, and diverges as the Heisenberg limit is approached, as D∼(Δ-1)^{-1/2}.

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