Quantum Many-Body Scars: A Quasiparticle Perspective

Weakly interacting quasiparticles play a central role in the low-energy description of many phases of quantum matter. At higher energies, however, quasiparticles cease to be well defined in generic many-body systems owing to a proliferation of decay channels. In this review, we discuss the phenomeno...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAnnual review of condensed matter physics Vol. 14; pp. 443 - 469
Main Authors Chandran, Anushya, Iadecola, Thomas, Khemani, Vedika, Moessner, Roderich
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Annual Reviews 10.03.2023
Subjects
constrained dynamics
eigenstate thermalization
out-of-equilibrium quantum dynamics
quantum chaos
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Summary:Weakly interacting quasiparticles play a central role in the low-energy description of many phases of quantum matter. At higher energies, however, quasiparticles cease to be well defined in generic many-body systems owing to a proliferation of decay channels. In this review, we discuss the phenomenon of quantum many-body scars, which can give rise to certain species of stable quasiparticles throughout the energy spectrum. This goes along with a set of unusual nonequilibrium phenomena including many-body revivals and nonthermal stationary states. We provide a pedagogical exposition of this physics via a simple yet comprehensive example, that of a spin-1 XY model. We place our discussion in the broader context of symmetry-based constructions of many-body scar states, projector embeddings, and Hilbert space fragmentation. We conclude with a summary of experimental progress and theoretical puzzles.
ISSN:1947-5454
1947-5462
DOI:10.1146/annurev-conmatphys-031620-101617