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arXiv:2601.14206

Locality forces equal energy spacing of quantum many-body scar towers

Nicholas O'Dea, Lei Gioia, Sanjay Moudgalya, Olexei I. Motrunich

quant-phcond-mat.stat-mechSubmitted Jan 20, 2026• Announced Jan 21, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

Quantum many-body scars are non-thermal eigenstates embedded in the spectra of otherwise non-integrable Hamiltonians. Paradigmatic examples often appear as quasiparticle towers of states, such as the maximally ferromagnetic spin-1/2 states, also known as Dicke states. A distinguishing feature of quantum many-body scars is that they admit multiple local "parent" Hamiltonians for which they are exact eigenstates. In this work, we show that the locality of such parent Hamiltonians strongly constrains the relative placement of these states within the energy spectrum. In particular, we prove that if the full set of Dicke states are exact eigenstates of an extensive local Hamiltonian, then their energies must necessarily be equally spaced. Our proof builds on recent results concerning parent Hamiltonians of the $W$ state, together with general algebraic structures underlying such quasiparticle towers. We further demonstrate that this equal spacing property extends to local Hamiltonians defined on arbitrary bounded-degree graphs, including regular lattices in any spatial dimension and expander graphs. Hamiltonians with $k$-local interactions and a bounded number of interaction terms per site are also encompassed by our proof. On the same classes of graphs, we additionally establish equal spacing for towers constructed from multi-site quasiparticles on top of product states. For the towers considered here, an immediate corollary of the equal spacing property is that any state initialized entirely within the quantum many-body scar manifold exhibits completely frozen entanglement dynamics under any local Hamiltonian for which those scars are exact eigenstates. Overall, our results reveal a stringent interplay between locality and the structure of quantum many-body scars.

Related papers

Tower of quantum scars in a partially many-body localized system

Michael Iversen, Anne E. B. Nielsen

Isolated quantum many-body systems are often well described by the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis. There are, however, mechanisms that cause different behavior: many-body localization and quantum many-body scars. Here, we show how one can find disordered Hamiltonians hosting a tower of scars by adapting a known method for finding parent Hamiltonians. Using this method, we construct a spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ model which is both partially localized and contains scars. We demonstrate that the model is partially localized by studying numerically the level spacing statistics and bipartite entanglement entropy. As disorder is introduced, the adjacent gap ratio transitions from the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble to the Poisson distribution and the entropy shifts from volume-law to area-law scaling. We investigate the properties of scars in a partially localized background and compare with a thermal background. At strong disorder, states initialized inside or outside the scar subspace display different dynamical behavior but have similar entanglement entropy and Schmidt gap. We demonstrate that localization stabilizes scar revivals of initial states with support both inside and outside the scar subspace. Finally, we show how strong disorder introduces additional approximate towers of eigenstates.

arXiv:2301.01681•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•May 22, 2023•10 citations

Additional quantum many-body scars of the spin-$1$ $XY$ model with Fock-space cages and commutant algebras

Sashikanta Mohapatra, Sanjay Moudgalya, Ajit C. Balram

Quantum many-body scars (QMBS) represent a mechanism for weak ergodicity breaking, characterized by the coexistence of atypical non-thermal eigenstates within an otherwise thermalizing many-body spectrum. In this work, we revisit the spin-$1$ $XY$ model on a periodic chain and construct several new families of exact scar eigenstates embedded within its extensively degenerate manifolds that owe their origins to an interplay of $U(1)$ magnetization conservation and chiral symmetries. We go beyond previously studied towers of states and first identify a novel set of interference-protected eigenstates resembling Fock space cage states, where destructive interference confines the wave function to sparse subgraphs of the Fock space. These states exhibit subextensive entanglement entropy, and when subjected to a transverse magnetic field, form equally spaced ladders whose coherent superpositions display long-lived fidelity oscillations. We further reveal a simpler organizing principle behind these nonthermal states by using the commutant algebra framework, in particular by showing that they are simultaneous eigenstates of non-commuting local operators. Moreover, in doing so, we uncover two more novel families of exact scars: a tower of volume-entangled states, and a set of mirror-dimer states with some free local degrees of freedom. Our results illustrate the power and interplay of interference-based and algebraic mechanisms of non-ergodicity, offering systematic routes to identifying and classifying QMBS in generic many-body quantum systems.

cond-mat.str-elCross-listedarXiv:2511.14878•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Nov 20, 2025•2 citations

Any local Hamiltonian with ferromagnetic quantum many-body scars has a generalized Shiraishi-Mori form

Keita Omiya

Quantum many-body scars (QMBS) are nonthermal eigenstates embedded in otherwise thermal spectra. A broad class of exact QMBS is realized as fixed-momentum magnon states above a ferromagnetic reference state. Here we prove a structural theorem for this class. Specifically, we show that any local Hamiltonian hosting such ``ferromagnetic scar states'' necessarily admits a decomposition into a Zeeman term and terms containing local projectors that annihilate the scar states locally. This result establishes that an appropriate generalization of the Shiraishi--Mori construction is essentially exhaustive for ferromagnetic QMBS and provides a unified structural explanation for the recurrent appearance of projector-based interactions and equally spaced scar towers across a broad family of exact scar Hamiltonians.

quant-pharXiv:2601.11806•Jan 20, 2026•0 citations

Asymptotic Quantum Many-Body Scars

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We consider a quantum lattice spin model featuring exact quasiparticle towers of eigenstates with low entanglement at finite size, known as quantum many-body scars (QMBS). We show that the states in the neighboring part of the energy spectrum can be superposed to construct entire families of low-entanglement states whose energy variance decreases asymptotically to zero as the lattice size is increased. As a consequence, they have a relaxation time that diverges in the thermodynamic limit, and therefore exhibit the typical behavior of exact QMBS, although they are not exact eigenstates of the Hamiltonian for any finite size. We refer to such states as asymptotic QMBS. These states are orthogonal to any exact QMBS at any finite size, and their existence shows that the presence of an exact QMBS leaves important signatures of nonthermalness in the rest of the spectrum; therefore, QMBS-like phenomena can hide in what is typically considered the thermal part of the spectrum. We support our study using numerical simulations in the spin-1 XY model, a paradigmatic model for QMBS, and we conclude by presenting a weak perturbation of the model that destroys the exact QMBS while keeping the asymptotic QMBS.

arXiv:2303.05407•Physical Review Letters•Nov 7, 2023•24 citations

Parent Hamiltonians for stabilizer quantum many-body scars

Shane Dooley

Quantum many-body scars (QMBS) have attracted considerable interest due to their role in weak ergodicity breaking in many-body systems. We present a general construction that embeds stabilizer states as QMBS of local Hamiltonians. The method relies on a notion of factorizability of Pauli strings on a lattice, which is used to convert stabilizer elements into local, few-body operators that annihilate the stabilizer state. This enables the systematic construction of parent Hamiltonians with zero-energy stabilizer QMBS typically near the middle of the spectrum. The method reproduces several known results in a unified framework, including recent examples of volume-law entangled QMBS, such as the ``rainbow'' QMBS and the entangled antipodal Bell pair state. We also apply the framework to construct examples of stabilizer QMBS with a more complex entanglement structure, such as the cluster state, the toric code state, and a volume-law entangled state we dub the antipodal toric code (ATC) state. Exact diagonalization confirms our results and reveal the stabilizer states as exact eigenstates of their parent Hamiltonian.

quant-pharXiv:2601.10805•Physical Review Letters•Jan 19, 2026•0 citations

Scar subspaces stabilized by algebraic closure: Beyond equally-spaced spectra and exact solvability

Chihiro Matsui

We construct a class of quantum many-body systems hosting an $\mathfrak{su}(3)$-invariant scar subspace, extending the conventional paradigm of quantum many-body scars beyond equally spaced spectra and single-directional tower structures. Our construction is based on local constraints that realize an algebraic closure within the scar subspace. As a result, the spectrum in the subspace is no longer equally spaced, but instead forms a multidirectional lattice structure parametrized by multiple independent quantum numbers. This leads to qualitatively new dynamical signatures: instead of single-frequency revivals, the system exhibits multifrequency oscillations governed by integer linear combinations of distinct energy scales. Importantly, the stability of the scar subspace does not rely on exact solvability of individual eigenstates. We show that algebraic closure preserves the invariant subspace even under perturbations that render the eigenstates analytically intractable, thereby realizing quantum many-body scars on an unsolvable reference state. Our results identify algebraic closure as a unifying mechanism underlying scar subspaces beyond the conventional $\mathfrak{su}(2)$ paradigm, and open a route toward richer nonthermal dynamics in nonintegrable quantum systems.

cond-mat.stat-mechCross-listedarXiv:2604.11015•Apr 14, 2026•0 citations
Quantum many-body scars are non-thermal eigenstates embedded in the spectra of otherwise non-integrable Hamiltonians. Paradigmatic examples often appear as quasiparticle towers of states, such as the maximally ferromagnetic spin-1/2 states, also known as Dicke states. A distinguishing feature of quantum many-body scars is that they admit multiple local "parent" Hamiltonians for which they are exact eigenstates. In this work, we show that the locality of such parent Hamiltonians strongly constrains the relative placement of these states within the energy spectrum. In particular, we prove that if the full set of Dicke states are exact eigenstates of an extensive local Hamiltonian, then their energies must necessarily be equally spaced. Our proof builds on recent results concerning parent Hamiltonians of the WWW state, together with general algebraic structures underlying such quasiparticle towers. We further demonstrate that this equal spacing property extends to local Hamiltonians defined on arbitrary bounded-degree graphs, including regular lattices in any spatial dimension and expander graphs. Hamiltonians with kkk-local interactions and a bounded number of interaction terms per site are also encompassed by our proof. On the same classes of graphs, we additionally establish equal spacing for towers constructed from multi-site quasiparticles on top of product states. For the towers considered here, an immediate corollary of the equal spacing property is that any state initialized entirely within the quantum many-body scar manifold exhibits completely frozen entanglement dynamics under any local Hamiltonian for which those scars are exact eigenstates. Overall, our results reveal a stringent interplay between locality and the structure of quantum many-body scars.
Isolated quantum many-body systems are often well described by the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis. There are, however, mechanisms that cause different behavior: many-body localization and quantum many-body scars. Here, we show how one can find disordered Hamiltonians hosting a tower of scars by adapting a known method for finding parent Hamiltonians. Using this method, we construct a spin-12\frac{1}{2}21​ model which is both partially localized and contains scars. We demonstrate that the model is partially localized by studying numerically the level spacing statistics and bipartite entanglement entropy. As disorder is introduced, the adjacent gap ratio transitions from the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble to the Poisson distribution and the entropy shifts from volume-law to area-law scaling. We investigate the properties of scars in a partially localized background and compare with a thermal background. At strong disorder, states initialized inside or outside the scar subspace display different dynamical behavior but have similar entanglement entropy and Schmidt gap. We demonstrate that localization stabilizes scar revivals of initial states with support both inside and outside the scar subspace. Finally, we show how strong disorder introduces additional approximate towers of eigenstates.
Additional quantum many-body scars of the spin-111 XYXYXY model with Fock-space cages and commutant algebras
Quantum many-body scars (QMBS) represent a mechanism for weak ergodicity breaking, characterized by the coexistence of atypical non-thermal eigenstates within an otherwise thermalizing many-body spectrum. In this work, we revisit the spin-111 XYXYXY model on a periodic chain and construct several new families of exact scar eigenstates embedded within its extensively degenerate manifolds that owe their origins to an interplay of U(1)U(1)U(1) magnetization conservation and chiral symmetries. We go beyond previously studied towers of states and first identify a novel set of interference-protected eigenstates resembling Fock space cage states, where destructive interference confines the wave function to sparse subgraphs of the Fock space. These states exhibit subextensive entanglement entropy, and when subjected to a transverse magnetic field, form equally spaced ladders whose coherent superpositions display long-lived fidelity oscillations. We further reveal a simpler organizing principle behind these nonthermal states by using the commutant algebra framework, in particular by showing that they are simultaneous eigenstates of non-commuting local operators. Moreover, in doing so, we uncover two more novel families of exact scars: a tower of volume-entangled states, and a set of mirror-dimer states with some free local degrees of freedom. Our results illustrate the power and interplay of interference-based and algebraic mechanisms of non-ergodicity, offering systematic routes to identifying and classifying QMBS in generic many-body quantum systems.
Quantum many-body scars (QMBS) are nonthermal eigenstates embedded in otherwise thermal spectra. A broad class of exact QMBS is realized as fixed-momentum magnon states above a ferromagnetic reference state. Here we prove a structural theorem for this class. Specifically, we show that any local Hamiltonian hosting such ``ferromagnetic scar states'' necessarily admits a decomposition into a Zeeman term and terms containing local projectors that annihilate the scar states locally. This result establishes that an appropriate generalization of the Shiraishi--Mori construction is essentially exhaustive for ferromagnetic QMBS and provides a unified structural explanation for the recurrent appearance of projector-based interactions and equally spaced scar towers across a broad family of exact scar Hamiltonians.
We consider a quantum lattice spin model featuring exact quasiparticle towers of eigenstates with low entanglement at finite size, known as quantum many-body scars (QMBS). We show that the states in the neighboring part of the energy spectrum can be superposed to construct entire families of low-entanglement states whose energy variance decreases asymptotically to zero as the lattice size is increased. As a consequence, they have a relaxation time that diverges in the thermodynamic limit, and therefore exhibit the typical behavior of exact QMBS, although they are not exact eigenstates of the Hamiltonian for any finite size. We refer to such states as asymptotic QMBS. These states are orthogonal to any exact QMBS at any finite size, and their existence shows that the presence of an exact QMBS leaves important signatures of nonthermalness in the rest of the spectrum; therefore, QMBS-like phenomena can hide in what is typically considered the thermal part of the spectrum. We support our study using numerical simulations in the spin-1 XY model, a paradigmatic model for QMBS, and we conclude by presenting a weak perturbation of the model that destroys the exact QMBS while keeping the asymptotic QMBS.
Quantum many-body scars (QMBS) have attracted considerable interest due to their role in weak ergodicity breaking in many-body systems. We present a general construction that embeds stabilizer states as QMBS of local Hamiltonians. The method relies on a notion of factorizability of Pauli strings on a lattice, which is used to convert stabilizer elements into local, few-body operators that annihilate the stabilizer state. This enables the systematic construction of parent Hamiltonians with zero-energy stabilizer QMBS typically near the middle of the spectrum. The method reproduces several known results in a unified framework, including recent examples of volume-law entangled QMBS, such as the ``rainbow'' QMBS and the entangled antipodal Bell pair state. We also apply the framework to construct examples of stabilizer QMBS with a more complex entanglement structure, such as the cluster state, the toric code state, and a volume-law entangled state we dub the antipodal toric code (ATC) state. Exact diagonalization confirms our results and reveal the stabilizer states as exact eigenstates of their parent Hamiltonian.
We construct a class of quantum many-body systems hosting an su(3)\mathfrak{su}(3)su(3)-invariant scar subspace, extending the conventional paradigm of quantum many-body scars beyond equally spaced spectra and single-directional tower structures. Our construction is based on local constraints that realize an algebraic closure within the scar subspace. As a result, the spectrum in the subspace is no longer equally spaced, but instead forms a multidirectional lattice structure parametrized by multiple independent quantum numbers. This leads to qualitatively new dynamical signatures: instead of single-frequency revivals, the system exhibits multifrequency oscillations governed by integer linear combinations of distinct energy scales. Importantly, the stability of the scar subspace does not rely on exact solvability of individual eigenstates. We show that algebraic closure preserves the invariant subspace even under perturbations that render the eigenstates analytically intractable, thereby realizing quantum many-body scars on an unsolvable reference state. Our results identify algebraic closure as a unifying mechanism underlying scar subspaces beyond the conventional su(2)\mathfrak{su}(2)su(2) paradigm, and open a route toward richer nonthermal dynamics in nonintegrable quantum systems.