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arXiv:2402.18001 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Hilbert space fragmentation and subspace scar time-crystallinity in driven homogeneous central-spin models

Abhishek Kumar, Rafail Frantzeskakis, Edwin Barnes

Published Jan 3, 2025• 3 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the stroboscopic nonequilibrium quantum dynamics of periodically kicked Hamiltonians involving homogeneous central-spin interactions. The system exhibits a strong fragmentation of Hilbert space into four-dimensional Floquet-Krylov subspaces, which oscillate between two disjointed two-dimensional subspaces and thus break the discrete time-translation symmetry of the system. Our analytical and numerical analyses reveal that fully polarized states of the satellite spins exhibit fragmentations that are stable against perturbations and have high overlap with Floquet eigenstates of atypically low bipartite entanglement entropy (scar states). Motivated by the breaking of discrete time translation symmetry by Floquet-Krylov subspaces, we introduce a novel type of time crystal that we call a ``subspace time crystal.'' We present evidence of robust time-crystalline behavior in the form of a period doubling of the total magnetization of fully polarized satellite spin states that persists over long timescales. We compute nonequilibrium phase diagrams with respect to a magnetic field, coupling terms, and pulse error for various interaction types, including Heisenberg, Ising, XXZ, and XX. We also discuss possible experimental realizations of scar time crystals in color center, quantum dot, and rare-earth ion platforms.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.111.014302

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We study the stroboscopic nonequilibrium quantum dynamics of periodically kicked Hamiltonians involving homogeneous central-spin interactions. The system exhibits a strong fragmentation of Hilbert space into four-dimensional Floquet-Krylov subspaces, which oscillate between two disjointed two-dimensional subspaces and thus break the discrete time-translation symmetry of the system. Our analytical and numerical analyses reveal that fully polarized states of the satellite spins exhibit fragmentations that are stable against perturbations and have high overlap with Floquet eigenstates of atypically low bipartite entanglement entropy (scar states). Motivated by the breaking of discrete time translation symmetry by Floquet-Krylov subspaces, we introduce a novel type of time crystal that we call a ``subspace time crystal.'' We present evidence of robust time-crystalline behavior in the form of a period doubling of the total magnetization of fully polarized satellite spin states that persists over long timescales. We compute nonequilibrium phase diagrams with respect to a magnetic field, coupling terms, and pulse error for various interaction types, including Heisenberg, Ising, XXZ, and XX. We also discuss possible experimental realizations of scar time crystals in color center, quantum dot, and rare-earth ion platforms.
Discrete time crystals (DTCs) are non-equilibrium phases of matter that break the discrete time-translation symmetry and is characterized by a robust subharmonic response in periodically driven quantum systems. Here, we explore the DTC in a disorder-free, periodically kicked XXZ spin chain, which is stabilized by the Floquet strong Hilbert space fragmentation. We numerically show the period-doubling response of the conventional DTC order, and uncover a multiple-period response with beating dynamics due to the coherent interplay of multiple πππ-pairs in the Floquet spectrum of small-size systems. The lifetime of the DTC order exhibits independence of the driving frequency and a power-law dependence on the ZZ interaction strength. It also grows exponentially with the system size, as a hallmark of the strong fragmentation inherent to the Floquet model. We analytically reveal the approximate conservation of the magnetization and domain-wall number in the Floquet operator for the emergent strong fragmentation, which is consistent with numerical results of the dimensionality ratio of symmetry subspaces. The rigidity and phase regime of the DTC order are identified through finite-size scaling of the Floquet-spectrum-averaged mutual information, as well as via dynamical probes. Our work establishes the Floquet Hilbert space fragmentation as a disorder-free mechanism for sustaining nontrivial temporal orders in out-of-equilibrium quantum many-body systems.
We investigate the emergence of a scarred discrete time crystal (SDTC) phase in a periodically driven dimerized spin chain. While generic interacting Floquet systems are expected to thermalize according to the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), we demonstrate that this system hosts quantum many-body scars (QMBS) that induce a regime of weak ergodicity breaking. Through an analysis of Floquet level statistics, entanglement entropy, and eigenstate fidelity, we identify a manifold of low-entanglement states characterized by semi-Poisson statistics embedded within an otherwise thermal spectrum. These scarred states support robust subharmonic oscillations with period doubling, signaling the spontaneous breaking of discrete time-translation symmetry. We show that the SDTC response is robust against a variety of initial state configurations, demonstrating its stability beyond fine-tuned conditions. A finite-size scaling analysis reveals that the time-crystalline lifetime grows with system size within the range accessible to our exact-diagonalization calculations. However, drawing on the general phenomenology of approximate many-body scars, we expect that hybridization between Floquet scars and the thermal continuum will eventually curtail this growth, causing the lifetime to saturate at system sizes beyond our current numerical reach. This characterizes the SDTC as a long-lived metastable dynamical regime rather than a strictly stable thermodynamic phase, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding the interplay between periodic driving and constrained many-body dynamics in disorder-free systems.
Recent works on the observation of discrete time-crystalline signatures throw up major puzzles on the necessity of localization for stabilizing such out-of-equilibrium phases. Motivated by these studies, we delve into a clean interacting Floquet system whose quasi-spectrum conforms to the ergodic Wigner-Dyson distribution, yet with an unexpectedly robust, long-lived time-crystalline dynamics in the absence of disorder or fine-tuning. We relate such behavior to a measure zero set of nonthermal Floquet eigenstates with long-range spatial correlations, which coexist with otherwise thermal states at near-infinite temperature and develop a high overlap with a family of translationally invariant, symmetry-broken initial conditions. This resembles the notion of ``dynamical scars'' that remain robustly localized throughout a thermalizing Floquet spectrum with fractured structure. We dub such a long-lived discrete time crystal formed in partially nonergodic systems, ``scarred discrete time crystal'' which is distinct by nature from those stabilized by either many-body localization or prethermalization mechanism.
We study an Ising model with long-range interactions undergoing a time-periodic kicking. For different initial states we observe persistent period doubling. When there is period doubling we find that the initial state has relevant overlap with Floquet states showing time-translation symmetry breaking, organized in doublets displaying πππ-spectral pairing (as highlighted by the πππ-spectral gap) and long-range order (as shown by the eigenvalues of the magnetization in the doublet). We observe period doubling for initial states with domain walls and tilted spins, and for the latter ones a finite-size scaling of the relevant πππ-shifted gap and magnetization eigenvalues suggests period-doubling oscillations persisting for larger system sizes and lasting a time exponential in the system size. We find that just a minority of Floquet states displays time-translation symmetry breaking while the rest is thermal, a weak-ergodicity breaking situation typical of systems with quantum scars. Although the time-translation symmetry breaking eigenstates are the minority, their number is exponential in the system size and this motivates the period doubling observed for many different initial states.
Time-crystalline behavior has been predicted and observed in quantum central-spin systems with periodic driving and Ising interactions. Here, we theoretically show that it can also arise in central-spin systems with Heisenberg interactions. We present two methods to achieve this: application of a sufficiently large Zeeman splitting on the central spin compared to the satellite spins, or else by applying additional pulses to the central spin every Floquet period. In both cases, we show that the system exhibits a subharmonic response in spin magnetizations in the presence of disorder for both pure Heisenberg and XXZ interactions. Our results pertain to any XXZ central-spin system, including hyperfine-coupled electron-nuclear systems in quantum dots or color centers.
We reconstruct the spectral pairing theories to enable analytical descriptions of eigenstate spatiotemporal orders in translation-invariant system without prethermal conditions. It is shown that the strong Ising interactions and drivings alone stabilize a class of ``cat scar'' eigenstates with tunable patterns, which lead to local discrete time-crystal (DTC) dynamics. They exhibit Fock space localization and long-range correlations robust against generic perturbations in a disorder-free scenario. In particular, we introduce a symmetry indicator method to enumerate cat scars, with which a set of unexpected inhomogeneous scar patterns are identified in addition to the ferromagnetic scars found before. These scars enforce DTC dynamics with rigid inhomogeneous patterns, offering a viable way to verify underlying eigenstate properties experimentally. Further, we prove rigorously that the strong Ising interactions enforces a selection rule for perturbations of different orders, which imposes an exponential suppression of spin fluctuations for Floquet eigenstates. Based on this property, three analytical scaling relations are proved to characterize the amplitudes, Fock space localization, and lifetime for DTC dynamics associated with cat scars. We further provide two practical methods to check whether certain DTC phenomena are dominated by single-spin dynamics or due to genuine interaction effects.