No Arabic abstract
We study a kinetically constrained pair hopping model that arises within a Landau level in the quantum Hall effect. At filling $ u = 1/3$, the model exactly maps onto the so-called PXP model, a constrained model for the Rydberg atom chain that is numerically known to exhibit ETH-violating states in the middle of the spectrum or quantum many-body scars. Indeed, particular charge density wave configurations exhibit the same revivals seen in the PXP model. We generalize the mapping to fillings factors $ u = p/(2p+1)$, and show that the model is equivalent to non-integrable spin-chains within particular constrained Krylov Hilbert spaces. These lead to new examples of quantum many-body scars which manifest as revivals and slow thermalization of particular charge density wave states. Finally, we investigate the stability of the quantum scars under certain Hamiltonian perturbations motivated by the fractional quantum Hall physics.
The discovery of Quantum Many-Body Scars (QMBS) both in Rydberg atom simulators and in the Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki (AKLT) spin-1 chain model, have shown that a weak violation of ergodicity can still lead to rich experimental and theoretical physics. In this review, we provide a pedagogical introduction to and an overview of the exact results on weak ergodicity breaking via QMBS in isolated quantum systems with the help of simple examples such as the fermionic Hubbard model. We also discuss various mechanisms and unifying formalisms that have been proposed to encompass the plethora of systems exhibiting QMBS. We cover examples of equally-spaced towers that lead to exact revivals for particular initial states, as well as isolated examples of QMBS. Finally, we review Hilbert Space Fragmentation, a related phenomenon where systems exhibit a richer variety of ergodic and non-ergodic behaviors, and discuss its connections to QMBS.
We study the spin-1 XY model on a hypercubic lattice in $d$ dimensions and show that this well-known nonintegrable model hosts an extensive set of anomalous finite-energy-density eigenstates with remarkable properties. Namely, they exhibit subextensive entanglement entropy and spatiotemporal long-range order, both believed to be impossible in typical highly excited eigenstates of nonintegrable quantum many-body systems. While generic initial states are expected to thermalize, we show analytically that the eigenstates we construct lead to weak ergodicity breaking in the form of persistent oscillations of local observables following certain quantum quenches--in other words, these eigenstates provide an archetypal example of so-called quantum many-body scars. This work opens the door to the analytical study of the microscopic origin, dynamical signatures, and stability of such phenomena.
We revisit the $eta$-pairing states in Hubbard models and explore their connections to quantum many-body scars to discover a universal scars mechanism. $eta$-pairing occurs due to an algebraic structure known as a Spectrum Generating Algebra (SGA), giving rise to equally spaced towers of eigenstates in the spectrum. We generalize the original $eta$-pairing construction and show that several Hubbard-like models on arbitrary graphs exhibit SGAs, including ones with disorder and spin-orbit coupling. We further define a Restricted Spectrum Generating Algebra (RSGA) and give examples of perturbations to the Hubbard-like models that preserve an equally spaced tower of the original model as eigenstates. The states of the surviving tower exhibit a sub-thermal entanglement entropy, and we analytically obtain parameter regimes for which they lie in the bulk of the spectrum, showing that they are exact quantum many-body scars. The RSGA framework also explains the equally spaced towers of eigenstates in several well-known models of quantum scars, including the AKLT model.
In this letter, we study the PXP Hamiltonian with an external magnetic field that exhibits both quantum scar states and quantum criticality. It is known that this model hosts a series of quantum many-body scar states violating quantum thermalization at zero magnetic field, and it also exhibits an Ising quantum phase transition driven by finite magnetic field. Although the former involves the properties of generic excited states and the latter concerns the low-energy physics, we discover two surprising connections between them, inspired by the observation that both states possess log-volume law entanglement entropies. First, we show that the quantum many-body scar states can be tracked to a set of quantum critical states, whose nature can be understood as pair-wisely occupied Fermi sea states. Second, we show that the partial violation of quantum thermalization diminishes in the quantum critical regime. We envision that these connections can be extended to general situations and readily verified in existing cold atom experimental platforms.
We study weak ergodicity breaking in a one-dimensional, nonintegrable spin-1 XY model. We construct for it an exact, highly excited eigenstate, which despite its large energy density, can be represented analytically by a finite bond-dimension matrix product state (MPS) with area-law entanglement. Upon a quench to a finite Zeeman field, the state undergoes periodic dynamics with perfect many-body revivals, in stark contrast to other generic initial states which instead rapidly thermalize. This dynamics can be completely understood in terms of the evolution of entangled virtual spin-1/2 degrees of freedom, which in turn underpin the presence of an extensive tower of strong-eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH)-violating many-body eigenstates. The resulting quantum many-body scars are therefore of novel origin. Our results provide important analytical insights into the nature and entanglement structure of quantum many-body scars.