Superdiffusive Energy Transport in Kinetically Constrained Models

Abstract

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.