Quantum Hilbert Space Fragmentation and Entangled Frozen States

Abstract

We find that rank deficiency of the local Hamiltonian in a classically fragmented model is the key mechanism leading to quantum Hilbert space fragmentation. The rank deficiency produces local null directions that can generate entangled frozen states (EFS): entangled states embedded in mobile classical Krylov sectors that do not evolve under Hamiltonian dynamics. When the entangled frozen subspace is non-empty, the mobile classical sector splits into a mobile quantum Krylov subspace and an entangled frozen subspace, and the model exhibits quantum fragmentation. We establish this mechanism in four models of increasing symmetry structure: an asymmetric qubit projector with no symmetry, the $\mathbb{Z}_2$-symmetric GHZ projector, a $\mathbb{Z}_3$-symmetric cyclic qutrit projector, and the Temperley-Lieb model. For the asymmetric and GHZ projector models, we obtain closed-form expressions for irreducible Krylov dimensions, degeneracies, and sector multiplicities. The all-mobile-sector EFS in these two models exhibits a sub-volume-law bipartite entanglement entropy scaling as $S \sim \sqrt{L}$. Further, we introduce the notion of weak and strong quantum fragmentation, the quantum counterpart of the weak-strong distinction in classical fragmentation. After removing the EFS, the mobile quantum Krylov subspace decomposes into irreducible blocks. In the weak case, the number of irreducible blocks remains $O(1)$, each is individually ergodic with Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble (GOE) level statistics, and the unresolved spectrum follows an $m$GOE distribution. In the strong case, the number of irreducible blocks grows with system size, and the gap-ratio distribution approaches Poisson as $L\to\infty$.