Eigenstate thermalization in quantum many-body systems implies that eigenstates at high energy are similar to random vectors. Identifying systems where at least some eigenstates are nonthermal is an outstanding question. In this Letter we show that interacting quantum models that have a nullspace-a degenerate subspace of eigenstates at zero energy (zero modes), which corresponds to infinite temperature, provide a route to nonthermal eigenstates. We analytically show the existence of a zero mode which can be represented as a matrix product state for a certain class of local Hamiltonians. In the more general case we use a subspace disentangling algorithm to generate an orthogonal basis of zero modes characterized by increasing entanglement entropy. We show evidence for an area-law entanglement scaling of the least-entangled zero mode in the broad parameter regime, leading to a conjecture that all local Hamiltonians with the nullspace feature zero modes with area-law entanglement scaling and, as such, break the strong thermalization hypothesis. Finally, we find zero modes in constrained models and propose a setup for observing their experimental signatures.
Eigenstate thermalization in quantum many-body systems implies that eigenstates at high energy are similar to random vectors. Identifying systems where at least some eigenstates are nonthermal is an outstanding question. In this Letter we show that interacting quantum models that have a nullspace-a degenerate subspace of eigenstates at zero energy (zero modes), which corresponds to infinite temperature, provide a route to nonthermal eigenstates. We analytically show the existence of a zero mode which can be represented as a matrix product state for a certain class of local Hamiltonians. In the more general case we use a subspace disentangling algorithm to generate an orthogonal basis of zero modes characterized by increasing entanglement entropy. We show evidence for an area-law entanglement scaling of the least-entangled zero mode in the broad parameter regime, leading to a conjecture that all local Hamiltonians with the nullspace feature zero modes with area-law entanglement scaling and, as such, break the strong thermalization hypothesis. Finally, we find zero modes in constrained models and propose a setup for observing their experimental signatures.
In this work, we present new, highly non-trivial area-law exact zero-energy eigenstates of the one-dimensional (1D) PXP and related models. We formulate sufficient conditions for a matrix product state to represent an exact zero-energy eigenstate of a given 1D kinetically constrained model and use them to prove our new states. We also demonstrate that all previously known exact eigenstates of PXP-type models satisfy these conditions, and, in fact, can be directly deduced from them. We discuss and demonstrate a remarkably effective general numerical technique for discovering finite-bond-dimension eigenstates residing in degenerate subspaces of a broad class of Hamiltonians. Our results highlight a previously unrecognized structure characteristic of the exponentially large nullspaces in kinetically constrained models, suggesting the possibly of extensively many increasingly complex area-law zero-energy eigenstates in the thermodynamic limit. The important implications of these emergent exact eigenstates for the general thermalization phenomenology are exemplified by one of the states introduced in this work, which we propose is a member of the primary Z2 quantum many-body scar tower responsible for long-lived revivals in the Rydberg atom chain experiment.
In recent years, physicists have made great strides toward better understanding isolated many-body quantum systems. Already, two distinct phases are well known: systems that are ergodic and thermalize completely, and, by contrast, systems that exhibit many-body localization (MBL) due to a strong disorder potential, which prevents thermalization. It is tempting to wonder whether a phase of matter could exist between the extremes of full thermalization and MBL in a generic, i.e., nonintegrable, isolated many-body quantum system. Here, the authors provide evidence that such a nonergodic phase can be realized in a translationally invariant itinerant electron model, with both charge and spin degrees of freedom. Exact diagonalization calculations on finite system sizes reveal that there exists a ``spin band'' of nonthermal eigenstates. These states have entanglement entropy that scales as an overall ``volume law,'' but after a partial measurement of the spin on each site the scaling is modified to an ``area law,'' thus suggesting the states are not ergodic. These properties and others suggest that this model realizes a new nonthermal phase of matter, known as a quantum disentangled liquid (QDL). The putative existence of this phase has striking implications for the foundations of quantum statistical mechanics.
We study in detail the properties of the quantum East model, an interacting quantum spin chain inspired by simple kinetically constrained models of classical glasses.Through a combination of analytics, exact diagonalization, and tensor-network methods, we show the existence of a transition, from a fast to a slow thermalization regime, which manifests itself throughout the spectrum.On the slow side, by exploiting the localization of the ground state and the form of the Hamiltonian, we explicitly construct a large (exponential in size) number of nonthermal states that become exact finite-energy-density eigenstates in the large size limit, as expected for a true phase transition.A "superspin" generalization allows us to find a further large class of area-law states proved to display very slow relaxation.These states retain memory of their initial conditions for extremely long times.Our numerical analysis reveals that the localization properties are not limited to the ground state and that many eigenstates have large overlap with product states and can be approximated well by matrix product states at arbitrary energy densities.The mechanism that induces localization to the ground state, and hence the nonthermal behavior of the system, can be extended to a wide range of models including a number of simple spin chains.We discuss implications of our results for slow thermalization and nonergodicity more generally in disorder-free systems with constraints, and we give numerical evidence that these results may be extended to two-dimensional systems.
We study in detail the properties of the quantum East model, an interacting quantum spin chain inspired by simple kinetically-constrained models of classical glasses. Through a combination of analytics, exact diagonalization and tensor-network methods we show the existence of a transition, from a fast to a slow thermalization regime, which manifests itself throughout the spectrum. On the slow side, by exploiting the localization of the ground state and the form of the Hamiltonian, we explicitly construct a large (exponential in size) number of non-thermal states which become exact finite-energy-density eigenstates in the large-size limit, as expected for a true phase transition. A ``super-spin'' generalization allows us to find a further large class of area-law states proved to display very slow relaxation. These states retain memory of their initial conditions for extremely long times. Our numerical analysis reveals that the localization properties are not limited to the ground state and that} many eigenstates have large overlap with product states and can be approximated well by matrix product states at arbitrary energy densities. The mechanism that induces localization to the ground state, and hence the non-thermal behavior of the system, can be extended to a wide range of models including a number of simple spin chains. We discuss implications of our results for slow thermalization and non-ergodicity more generally in disorder-free systems with constraints and we give numerical evidence that these results may be extended to two dimensional systems.
It is commonly believed that area laws for entanglement entropies imply that a quantum many-body state can be faithfully represented by efficient tensor network states—a conjecture frequently stated in the context of numerical simulations and analytical considerations. In this work, we show that this is in general not the case, except in one-dimension. We prove that the set of quantum many-body states that satisfy an area law for all Renyi entropies contains a subspace of exponential dimension. We then show that there are states satisfying area laws for all Renyi entropies but cannot be approximated by states with a classical description of small Kolmogorov complexity, including polynomial projected entangled pair states or states of multi-scale entanglement renormalisation. Not even a quantum computer with post-selection can efficiently prepare all quantum states fulfilling an area law, and we show that not all area law states can be eigenstates of local Hamiltonians. We also prove translationally and rotationally invariant instances of these results, and show a variation with decaying correlations using quantum error-correcting codes.
The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) plays a major role in explaining thermalization of isolated quantum many-body systems. However, there has been no proof of the ETH in realistic systems due to the difficulty in the theoretical treatment of thermal energy eigenstates of nonintegrable systems. Here, we write down analytically thermal eigenstates of nonintegrable spin chains. We consider a class of theoretically tractable volume-law states, which we call entangled antipodal pair (EAP) states. These states are thermal, in the most fundamental sense that they are indistinguishable from the Gibbs state with respect to all local observables, with infinite temperature. We then identify Hamiltonians having the EAP state as an eigenstate and rigorously show that some of these Hamiltonians are nonintegrable. Furthermore, a thermal pure state at an arbitrary temperature is obtained by the imaginary time evolution of an EAP state. Our results offer a potential avenue for providing a provable example of the ETH.