Embedding semiclassical periodic orbits into chaotic many-body Hamiltonians

Protecting coherent quantum dynamics from chaotic environment is key to realizations of fragile many-body phenomena and their applications in quantum technology. We present a general construction that embeds a desired periodic orbit into a family of non-integrable many-body Hamiltonians, whose dynamics is otherwise chaotic. Our construction is based on time dependent variational principle that projects quantum dynamics onto a manifold of low-entangled states, and it complements earlier approaches for embedding non-thermal eigenstates, known as quantum many-body scars, into thermalizing spectra. By designing terms that suppress "leakage" of the dynamics outside the variational manifold, we engineer families of Floquet models that host exact scarred dynamics, as we illustrate using a driven Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki model and a recent experimental realization of scars in a dimerized superconducting qubit chain.Comment: 6+13 page

Integrability breaking and bound states in Google's decorated XXZ circuits

Recent quantum simulation by Google [Nature 612, 240 (2022)] has demonstrated the formation of bound states of interacting photons in a quantum-circuit version of the XXZ spin chain. While such bound states are protected by integrability in a one-dimensional chain, the experiment found the bound states to be unexpectedly robust when integrability was broken by decorating the circuit with additional qubits, at least for small numbers of qubits ($\leq 24$) within the experimental capability. Here we scrutinize this result by state-of-the-art classical simulations, which greatly exceed the experimental system sizes and provide a benchmark for future studies in larger circuits. We find that the bound states consisting of a small and finite number of photons are indeed robust in the non-integrable regime, even after scaling to the infinite time and infinite system size limit. Moreover, we show that such systems possess unusual spectral properties, with level statistics that deviates from the random matrix theory expectation. On the other hand, for low but finite density of photons, we find a much faster onset of thermalization and significantly weaker signatures of bound states, suggesting that anomalous dynamics may only be a property of dilute systems with zero density of photons in the thermodynamic limit. The robustness of the bound states is also influenced by the number of decoration qubits and, to a lesser degree, by the regularity of their spatial arrangement.Comment: 19 pages, 15 figure

Superdiffusive Energy Transport in Kinetically Constrained Models

Universal nonequilibrium properties of isolated quantum systems are typically probed by studying transport of conserved quantities, such as charge or spin, while transport of energy has received considerably less attention. Here, we study infinite-temperature energy transport in the kinetically-constrained PXP model describing Rydberg atom quantum simulators. Our state-of-the-art numerical simulations, including exact diagonalization and time-evolving block decimation methods, reveal the existence of two distinct transport regimes. At moderate times, the energy-energy correlation function displays periodic oscillations due to families of eigenstates forming different su(2) representations hidden within the spectrum. These families of eigenstates generalize the quantum many-body scarred states found in previous works and leave an imprint on the infinite-temperature energy transport. At later times, we observe a broad superdiffusive transport regime that we attribute to the proximity of a nearby integrable point. Intriguingly, strong deformations of the PXP model by the chemical potential do not restore diffusion, but instead lead to a stable superdiffusive exponent $z\approx3/2$. Our results suggest constrained models to be potential hosts of novel transport regimes and call for developing an analytic understanding of their energy transport.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figure

Anatomy of Dynamical Quantum Phase Transitions

Global quenches of quantum many-body models can give rise to periodic dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPTs) directly connected to the zeros of a Landau order parameter (OP). The associated dynamics has been argued to bear close resemblance to Rabi oscillations characteristic of two-level systems. Here, we address the question of whether this DQPT behavior is merely a manifestation of the limit of an effective two-level system or if it can arise as part of a more complex dynamics. We focus on quantum many-body scarring as a useful toy model allowing us to naturally study state transfer in an otherwise chaotic system. We find that a DQPT signals a change in the dominant contribution to the wave function in the degenerate initial-state manifold, with a direct relation to an OP zero only in the special case of occurring at the midpoint of an evenly degenerate manifold. Our work generalizes previous results and reveals that, in general, periodic DQPTs comprise complex many-body dynamics fundamentally beyond that of two-level systems.Comment: Accepted versio

Deformed Fredkin model for the ν=5/2\nu{=}5/2 Moore-Read state on thin cylinders

We propose a frustration-free model for the Moore-Read quantum Hall state on sufficiently thin cylinders with circumferences $\lesssim 7$ magnetic lengths. While the Moore-Read Hamiltonian involves complicated long-range interactions between triplets of electrons in a Landau level, our effective model is a simpler one-dimensional chain of qubits with deformed Fredkin gates. We show that the ground state of the Fredkin model has high overlap with the Moore-Read wave function and accurately reproduces the latter's entanglement properties. Moreover, we demonstrate that the model captures the dynamical response of the Moore-Read state to a geometric quench, induced by suddenly changing the anisotropy of the system. We elucidate the underlying mechanism of the quench dynamics and show that it coincides with the linearized bimetric field theory. The minimal model introduced here can be directly implemented as a first step towards quantum simulation of the Moore-Read state, as we demonstrate by deriving an efficient circuit approximation to the ground state and implementing it on IBM quantum processor.Comment: 18 pages, 15 figure

Competing Abelian and non-Abelian topological orders in ν=1/3+1/3 quantum Hall bilayers

Bilayer quantum Hall systems, realized either in two separated wells or in the lowest two subbands of a wide quantum well, provide an experimentally realizable way to tune between competing quantum orders at the same filling fraction. Using newly developed density matrix renormalization group techniques combined with exact diagonalization, we return to the problem of quantum Hall bilayers at filling ν=1/3+1/3. We first consider the Coulomb interaction at bilayer separation d, bilayer tunneling energy ΔSAS, and individual layer width w, where we find a phase diagram which includes three competing Abelian phases: a bilayer Laughlin phase (two nearly decoupled ν=1/3 layers), a bilayer spin-singlet phase, and a bilayer symmetric phase. We also study the order of the transitions between these phases. A variety of non-Abelian phases has also been proposed for these systems. While absent in the simplest phase diagram, by slightly modifying the interlayer repulsion we find a robust non-Abelian phase which we identify as the "interlayer-Pfaffian" phase. In addition to non-Abelian statistics similar to the Moore-Read state, it exhibits a novel form of bilayer-spin charge separation. Our results suggest that ν=1/3+1/3 systems merit further experimental study