Anomalous quantum dynamics in scarred and integrable systems

Yan Liu, Ya-Wen Sun, Yuan-Tai Wang

Quantum many-body scars are atypical nonthermal states embedded in the chaotic spectrum that evade conventional ergodicity. We propose the asymptotically AdS mini-boson star as a holographic candidate for scar-like states. Their spectrum exhibits random-matrix signatures of chaos while supporting embedded integrable spectral branches. The whole holographic system, including black holes, is generically chaotic with most eigenstates satisfying the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis; in contrast, the boson star macrostate probes a near-integrable subsector within this chaotic spectrum, signaling scarred spectral structures. Boson stars further display anomalously low entanglement relative to black holes at the same energy density, and also robust revivals in Krylov complexity, revealing nonergodic dynamics. These spectral, entanglement, and dynamical diagnostics provide unified evidence for holographic quantum scars in a self-gravitating system. Our work suggests a new connection between many-body scar physics, quantum chaos, and horizonless gravitational dynamics.

Michael J. Davis, Ellen B. Stechel, Eric J. Heller

Ranchu Mathew, Eite Tiesinga

Shane Dooley, Luke Johnston, Patrick Gormley +1 more

Quantum many-body scars (QMBSs) offer a mechanism for weak ergodicity breaking, enabling nonthermal dynamics to persist in a chaotic many-body system. While most studies of QMBS focus on anomalous eigenstate properties or long-lived revivals of local observables, their potential for quantum information processing remains largely unexplored. In this work, we demonstrate that perfect quantum state transfer can be achieved in a strongly interacting, quantum chaotic spin chain by exploiting a sparse set of QMBS eigenstates embedded within an otherwise thermal spectrum. These results show that QMBSs in chaotic many-body systems may be harnessed for information transport tasks typically associated with integrable models.

Keita Omiya

This thesis investigates the anomalous dynamics observed in a Rydberg atom experiment in the broadest sense: a strongly interacting spin chain, without integrability or disorder, exhibits coherent many-body revivals ensuing only from specific initial states. This non-thermal behavior is attributed to the presence of quantum many-body scars (QMBS), a novel class of ergodicity breaking phenomena. Unlike other non-thermalizing systems such as integrable models and many-body localization, the mechanism of ergodicity breaking in QMBS is quite subtle, relying on a (vanishingly) small subset of anomalous eigenstates, known as scar states: one could observe ergodicity breaking only if initial states have appreciable overlap with these scar states. In other words, systems hosting QMBS are indistinguishable from typical chaotic, thermalizing systems, except for scar states. While the theoretical understanding of QMBS has advanced through the investigation of various toy quantum models, ranging from the Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki (AKLT) model to the Hubbard model, these insights do not fully resolve the mysterious oscillations in the Rydberg experiment: crucially the wavefunction corresponding to the experiment, and its relation to many other toy models in the literature remain open questions. Furthermore, beyond mathematical curiocity, the observability of non-thermal dynamics suggests that QMBS may yield distinct physical effects. the nature of which remains to be determined. This dissertation addresses these issues by solving two concrete problems: (i) the mathematical characterization of scar states in the PXP model, the effective model for the experiment, and (ii) the identification of physical consequences of QMBS in both short- and long-time dynamics. In the first part, we clarify the algebraic structure underlying the scar states of the PXP model and derive analytic ansatz for these wavefunctions. The proposed forms make explicit the hidden algebraic structure of the PXP scars and demonstrate how this structure is shared with many other QMBS Hamiltonians, including the AKLT model. The second part investigates dynamical signatures and robustness. Given the fragility of many-body eigenstates to perturbations, identifying which scar characteristics survive realistic perturbations is crucial. In closed systems, we show that out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) and the associated Lyapunov exponent can distinguish QMBS from generic chaotic states, at least within a semiclassical regime. Specifically, the OTOC growth associated with scar states is parametrically slower and remains slow under small ``scar-breaking'' perturbations. For open systems governed by non-Hermitian dynamics, we introduce a novel non-equilibrium phase, the QMBS phase, where the long-time wavefunction is localized in a small corner of the Hilbert space. We further identify a first-order transition between the QMBS phase and a thermal phase, where the wavefunction becomes delocalized.

Vladimir S. Filinov