arXiv subjects

Bhaskar Mukherjee

Publications and source records attributed to Bhaskar Mukherjee.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Dressed Floquet scars from protected zero modes in a Rydberg chain

In this Letter, we present an approximate analytic construction of two zero quasienergy quantum many-body scars in a periodically driven model of Rydberg atoms on a ring, which persist over a range of driving amplitudes and frequencies for finite sizes. An index theorem protects an exponentially large number (in system size) of exact zero energy modes of the Floquet Hamiltonian in this setting. Unlike most of these zero modes which continuously change with drive parameters, these two quantum many-body scars retain the memory of particular states. They can be expressed as {\it dressed versions} of two contrasting states, the Rydberg vacuum and a unitarily rotated variant of a volume-law scar [Ivanov and Motrunich, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 134}, 050403 (2025)], respectively. We provide an analytic understanding of their existence using a Floquet perturbation theory and show their resilience beyond the perturbative regime using exact diagonalization in finite systems. Our study provides insight into the structure of protected zero modes in interacting Floquet settings.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2025

Harmonic Control of Dynamical Freezing in Programmable Rydberg Atom Arrays

Periodic driving enables the engineering of complex quantum matter, yet in interacting systems it generically leads to energy absorption, which limits the lifetime of the engineered states. To address this challenge, dynamical freezing has been proposed as a mechanism for stabilizing non-equilibrium states over parametrically long timescales. While theory predicts robust freezing under simplifying assumptions, realistic platforms inevitably include additional interaction processes that alter its stability. Here, we report the experimental observation of dynamical freezing in programmable Rydberg atom arrays of up to 100 atoms in one and two dimensions. We find that while single-frequency driving produces pronounced suppression of excitation dynamics, the freezing behavior is restricted to a narrow parameter regime due to interaction-induced heating channels present in realistic simulators. Using a perturbative Floquet analysis of the fully interacting atomic system, we identify the dominant microscopic heating processes responsible for this destabilization. Leveraging this understanding, we design a dual-parameter modulation of detuning and Rabi frequency that coherently cancels these absorption pathways and substantially broadens the freezing regime, making it also robust across different geometries. Our results reveal how heating processes shape the stability of dynamical freezing in interacting Floquet systems and demonstrates a route to control driven many-body dynamics in realistic experimental platforms.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Exact generalized Bethe eigenstates of the non-integrable alternating Heisenberg chain

Exact solutions of quantum lattice models serve as useful guides for interpreting physical phenomena in condensed matter systems. Prominent examples of integrability appear in one dimension, including the Heisenberg chain, where the Bethe ansatz method has been widely successful. Recent work has noted that certain non-integrable models harbor quantum many-body scar states, which form a superspin of regular states hidden in an otherwise chaotic spectrum. Here we consider one of the simplest examples of a non-integrable model, the alternating ferromagnetic-antiferromagnetic (bond-staggered) Heisenberg chain, a close cousin of the spin-1 Haldane chain and a spin analog of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, and show the presence of exponentially many zero-energy states. We highlight features of the alternating chain that allow treatment with the Bethe ansatz (with important modifications) and surprisingly for a non-integrable system, we find simple compact expressions for zero-energy eigenfunctions for a few magnons including solutions with fractionalized particle momentum. We discuss a general numerical recipe to diagnose the existence of such generalized Bethe ansatz (GBA) states and also provide exact analytic expressions for the entanglement of such states. We conclude by conjecturing a picture of magnon pairing which may generalize to multiple magnons. Our work opens the avenue to describe certain eigenstates of partially integrable systems using the GBA.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2025

Symmetric tensor scars with tunable entanglement from volume to area law

Teleportation of quantum information over long distances requires robust entanglement on the macroscopic scale. The construction of highly energetic eigenstates with tunable long-range entanglement can provide a new medium for information transmission. Using a symmetric superposition of the antipodal triplet states, we construct polynomially many exact zero-energy eigenstates for a class of non-integrable spin-1/2 Hamiltonians with two-body interactions. These states exhibit non-thermal correlations, hence, are genuine quantum many-body scars. By tuning the distribution of triplets we induce extensive, logarithmic, or area-law entanglement, and can observe a second-order entanglement phase transition. Quasiparticle excitations in this manifold converge to be exact quantum many-body scars in the thermodynamic limit. This framework has a natural extension to higher dimensions, where entangled states controlled by lattice geometry and internal symmetries can result in new classes of correlated out-of-equilibrium quantum matter. Our results provide a new avenue for entanglement control and quantum state constructions.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2024

Stable infinite-temperature eigenstates in SU(2)-symmetric nonintegrable models

Nonintegrable many-body quantum systems typically thermalize at long times through the mechanism of quantum chaos. However, some exceptional systems, such as those harboring quantum scars, break thermalization, serving as testbeds for foundational problems of quantum statistical physics. Here, we investigate a class of nonintegrable bond-staggered models that is endowed with a large number of zero-energy eigenstates and possesses a non-Abelian internal symmetry. We use character theory to give a lower bound on the zero-energy degeneracy, which matches exact diagonalization results, and is found to grow exponentially with the system size. We also show that few-magnon zero-energy states have an exact analytical description, allowing us to build a basis of low-entangled fixed-separation states, which is stable to most perturbations found in experiments. This remarkable dynamical stability of special states elucidates our understanding of nonequilibrium processes in non-Abelian chaotic quantum models.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Emergent strong zero mode through local Floquet engineering

Periodically driven quantum systems host exotic phenomena which often do not have any analog in undriven systems. Floquet prethermalization and dynamical freezing of certain observables, via the emergence of conservation laws, are realized by controlling the drive frequency. These dynamical regimes can be leveraged to construct quantum memories and have potential applications in quantum information processing. Solid state and cold atom experimental architectures have opened avenues for implementing local Floquet engineering which can achieve spatially modulated quantum control of states. Here, we uncover the novel memory effects of local periodic driving in a nonintegrable spin-half staggered Heisenberg chain. For a boundary-driven protocol at the dynamical freezing frequency, we show the formation of an approximate strong zero mode, a prethermal quasi-local operator, due to the emergence of a discrete global $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry. This is captured by constructing an accurate effective Floquet Hamiltonian using a higher-order partially resummed Floquet-Magnus expansion. The lifetime of the boundary spin can be exponentially enhanced by enlarging the set of suitably chosen driven sites. We demonstrate that in the asymptotic limit, achieved by increasing the number of driven sites, a strong zero mode emerges, where the lifetime of the boundary spin grows exponentially with system size. The non-local processes in the Floquet Hamiltonian play a pivotal role in the total freezing of the boundary spin in the thermodynamic limit. The novel dynamics of the boundary spin is accompanied by a rich structure of entanglement in the Floquet eigenstates where specific bipartitions yield an area-law scaling while the entanglement for random bipartitions scales as a volume-law.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2023

Quantum state complexity meets many-body scars

Scar eigenstates in a many-body system refers to a small subset of non-thermal finite energy density eigenstates embedded into an otherwise thermal spectrum. This novel non-thermal behaviour has been seen in recent experiments simulating a one-dimensional PXP model with a kinetically-constrained local Hilbert space realized by a chain of Rydberg atoms. We probe these small sets of special eigenstates starting from particular initial states by computing the spread complexity associated to time evolution of the PXP hamiltonian. Since the scar subspace in this model is embedded only loosely, the scar states form a weakly broken representation of the Lie Algebra. We demonstrate why a careful usage of the Forward Scattering Approximation (or similar strategies thereof) is required to extract an appropriate set of Lanczos coefficients in this case as the consequence of this approximate symmetry. This leads to a well defined notion of a closed Krylov subspace and consequently, that of spread complexity. We show how the spread complexity shows approximate revivals starting from both $|\mathbb{Z}_2\rangle$ and $|\mathbb{Z}_3\rangle$ states and how these revivals can be made more accurate by adding optimal perturbations to the bare Hamiltonian. We also investigate the case of the vacuum as the initial state, where revivals can be stabilized using an iterative process of adding few-body terms.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Strong Hilbert space fragmentation via emergent quantum drums in two dimensions

We introduce a disorder-free model of $S=1/2$ spins on the square lattice in a constrained Hilbert space where two up-spins are not allowed simultaneously on any two neighboring sites of the lattice. The interactions are given by ring-exchange terms on elementary plaquettes that conserve both the total magnetization as well as dipole moment. We show that this model provides a tractable example of strong Hilbert space fragmentation in two dimensions with typical initial states evading thermalization with respect to the full Hilbert space. Given any product state, the system can be decomposed into disjoint spatial regions made of edge and/or vertex sharing plaquettes that we dub as ``quantum drums''. These quantum drums come in many shapes and sizes and specifying the plaquettes that belong to a drum fixes its spectrum. The spectra of some small drums is calculated analytically. We study two bigger quasi-one-dimensional drums numerically, dubbed ``wire'' and a ``junction of two wires'' respectively. We find that these possess a chaotic spectrum but also support distinct families of quantum many-body scars that cause periodic revivals from different initial states. The wire is shown to be equivalent to the one-dimensional PXP chain with open boundaries, a paradigmatic model for quantum many-body scarring; while the junction of two wires represents a distinct constrained model.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2022

Real space thermalization of locally driven quantum magnets

The study of thermalization and its breakdown in isolated systems has led to a deeper understanding of non-equilibrium quantum states and their dependence on initial conditions. The role of initial conditions is prominently highlighted by the existence of quantum many-body scars, special athermal states with an underlying effective superspin structure, embedded in an otherwise chaotic many-body spectrum. Spin Heisenberg and $XXZ$ models and their variants in one and higher dimension have been shown to host exact quantum many-body scars, exhibiting perfect revivals of spin helix states that are realizable in synthetic and condensed matter systems. Motivated by these advances, we propose experimentally accessible, local, time-dependent protocols to explore the spatial thermalization profile and highlight how different parts of the system thermalize and affect the fate of the superspin. We identify distinct parametric regimes for the ferromagnetic ($X$-polarized) initial state based on the interplay between the driven spin and the rest, including local athermal behavior where the driven spin effectively decouples, acting like a ``cold" spot while being instrumental in heating up the other spins. We also identify parameter regimes where the superspin remains resilient to local driving for long time scales. We develop a real and Floquet space picture that explains our numerical observations, and make predictions that can be tested in various experimental setups.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2022

Driving quantum many-body scars in the PXP model

Periodic driving has been established as a powerful technique for engineering novel phases of matter and intrinsically out-of-equilibrium phenomena such as time crystals. Recent work by Bluvstein et al. [Science 371, 1355 (2021)] has demonstrated that periodic driving can also lead to a significant enhancement of quantum many-body scarring, whereby certain non-integrable systems can display persistent quantum revivals from special initial states. Nevertheless, the mechanisms behind driving-induced scar enhancement remain poorly understood. Here we report a detailed study of the effect of periodic driving on the PXP model describing Rydberg atoms in the presence of a strong Rydberg blockade - the canonical static model of quantum many-body scarring. We show that periodic modulation of the chemical potential gives rise to a rich phase diagram, with at least two distinct types of scarring regimes that we distinguish by examining their Floquet spectra. We formulate a toy model, based on a sequence of square pulses, that accurately captures the details of the scarred dynamics and allows for analytical treatment in the large-amplitude and high-frequency driving regimes. Finally, we point out that driving with a spatially inhomogeneous chemical potential allows to stabilize quantum revivals from arbitrary initial states in the PXP model, via a mechanism similar to prethermalization.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2021

Periodically driven Rydberg chains with staggered detuning

We study the stroboscopic dynamics of a periodically driven finite Rydberg chain with staggered ($Δ$) and time-dependent uniform ($λ(t)$) detuning terms using exact diagonalization (ED). We show that at intermediate drive frequencies ($ω_D$), the presence of a finite $Δ$ results in violation of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) via clustering of Floquet eigenstates. Such clustering is lost at special commensurate drive frequencies for which $\hbar ω_d=n Δ$ ($n \in Z$) leading to restoration of ergodicity. The violation of ETH in these driven finite-sized chains is also evident from the dynamical freezing displayed by the density-density correlation function at specific $ω_D$. Such a correlator exhibits stable oscillations with perfect revivals when driven close to the freezing frequencies for initial all spin-down ($|0\rangle$) or Neel ($|{\mathbb Z}_2\rangle$, with up-spins on even sites) states. The amplitudes of these oscillations vanish at the freezing frequencies and reduces upon increasing $Δ$; their frequencies, however, remains pinned to $Δ/\hbar$ in the large $Δ$ limit. In contrast, for the $|{\bar {\mathbb Z}_2}\rangle$ (time-reversed partner of $|{\mathbb Z}_2\rangle$) initial state, we find complete absence of such oscillations leading to freezing for a range of $ω_D$; this range increases with $Δ$. We also study the properties of quantum many-body scars in the Floquet spectrum of the model as a function of $Δ$ and show the existence of novel mid-spectrum scars at large $Δ$. We supplement our numerical results with those from an analytic Floquet Hamiltonian computed using Floquet perturbation theory (FPT) and also provide a semi-analytic computation of the quantum scar states within a forward scattering approximation (FSA).

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Minimal model for Hilbert space fragmentation with local constraints

Motivated by previous works on a Floquet version of the PXP model [Mukherjee {\it et al.} Phys. Rev. B 102, 075123 (2020), Mukherjee {\it et al.} Phys. Rev. B 101, 245107 (2020)], we study a one-dimensional spin-$1/2$ lattice model with three-spin interactions in the same constrained Hilbert space (where all configurations with two adjacent $S^z=\uparrow$ spins are excluded). We show that this model possesses an extensive fragmentation of the Hilbert space which leads to a breakdown of thermalization upon unitary evolution starting from a large class of simple initial states. Despite the non-integrable nature of the Hamiltonian, many of its high-energy eigenstates admit a quasiparticle description. A class of these, which we dub as "bubble eigenstates", have integer eigenvalues (including mid-spectrum zero modes) and strictly localized quasiparticles while another class contains mobile quasiparticles leading to a dispersion in momentum space. Other anomalous eigenstates that arise due to a {\it secondary} fragmentation mechanism, including those that lead to flat bands in momentum space due to destructive quantum interference, are also discussed. The consequences of adding a (non-commuting) staggered magnetic field and a PXP term respectively to this model, where the former preserves the Hilbert space fragmentation while the latter destroys it, are discussed. A Floquet version with time-dependent staggered field also evades thermalization with additional features like freezing of exponentially many states at special drive frequencies. Finally, we map the model to a $U(1)$ lattice gauge theory coupled to dynamical fermions and discuss the interpretation of some of these anomalous states in this language. A class of gauge-invariant states show reduced mobility of the elementary charged excitations with only certain charge-neutral objects being mobile suggesting a connection to fractons.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Order by disorder in frustration-free systems: a Quantum Monte Carlo study of a two-dimensional PXP model

In this study, an order by disorder mechanism has been proposed in a two-dimensional PXP model, where the extensive degeneracy of the classical ground-state manifold is due to strict occupation constraints instead of geometrical frustrations. By performing an unbias large-scale quantum monte carlos simulation, we find that local quantum fluctuations, which usually work against long-range ordering, lift the macroscopic classical degeneracy and give rise to a compressible ground state with charge-density-wave long-range order. A simple trial wavefunction has been proposed to capture the essence of the ground-state of the two-dimensional PXP model. The finite temperature properties of this model have also been studied, and we find a thermal phase transition with an universality class of two-dimensional Ising model.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Constraint-induced breaking and restoration of ergodicity in spin-1 PXP models

Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis(ETH) has played a pivotal role in understanding ergodicity and its breaking in isolated quantum many-body systems. Recent experiment on 51-atom Rydberg quantum simulator and subsequent theoretical analysis have shown that hardcore kinetic constraint can lead to weak ergodicity breaking. In this work, we demonstrate, using 1d spin-1 PXP chains, that miscellaneous type of ergodicity can be realized by adjusting the hardcore constraints between different components of nearest neighbor spins. This includes ETH violation due to emergent shattering of Hilbert space into exponentially many subsectors of various sizes, a novel form of non-integrability with an extensive number of local conserved quantities and strong ergodicity. We analyze these different forms of ergodicity and study their impact on the non-equilibrium dynamics of a Z2 initial state. We use forward scattering approximation (FSA) to understand the amount of Z2-oscillation present in these models. Our work shows that not only ergodicity breaking but an appropriate choice of constraints can lead to restoration of ergodicity as well.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

A Floquet perturbation theory for periodically driven weakly-interacting fermions

We compute the Floquet Hamiltonian $H_F$ for weakly interacting fermions subjected to a continuous periodic drive using a Floquet perturbation theory (FPT) with the interaction amplitude being the perturbation parameter. This allows us to address the dynamics of the system at intermediate drive frequencies $\hbar ω_D \ge V_0 \ll {\mathcal J}_0$, where ${\mathcal J}_0$ is the amplitude of the kinetic term, $ω_D$ is the drive frequency, and $V_0$ is the typical interaction strength between the fermions. We compute, for random initial states, the fidelity $F$ between wavefunctions after a drive cycle obtained using $H_F$ and that obtained using exact diagonalization (ED). We find that FPT yields a substantially larger value of $F$ compared to its Magnus counterpart for $V_0\le \hbar ω_D$ and $V_0\ll {\mathcal J}_0$. We use the $H_F$ obtained to study the nature of the steady state of an weakly interacting fermion chain; we find a wide range of $ω_D$ which leads to subthermal or superthermal steady states for finite chains. The driven fermionic chain displays perfect dynamical localization for $V_0=0$; we address the fate of this dynamical localization in the steady state of a finite interacting chain and show that there is a crossover between localized and delocalized steady states. We discuss the implication of our results for thermodynamically large chains and chart out experiments which can test our theory.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2020

Dynamics of the vacuum state in a periodically driven Rydberg chain

We study the dynamics of the periodically driven Rydberg chain starting from the state with zero Rydberg excitations (vacuum state denoted by $|0\rangle$) using a square pulse protocol in the high drive amplitude limit. We show, using exact diagonalization for finite system sizes ($L\le 26$), that the Floquet Hamiltonian of the system, within a range of drive frequencies which we chart out, hosts a set of quantum scars which have large overlap with the $|0\rangle$ state. These scars are distinct from their counterparts having high overlap with the maximal Rydberg excitation state ($|\mathbb{Z}_2\rangle$); they coexist with the latter class of scars and lead to persistent coherent oscillations of the density-density correlator starting from the $|0\rangle$ state. We also identify special drive frequencies at which the system undergoes perfect dynamic freezing and provide an analytic explanation for this phenomenon. Finally, we demonstrate that for a wide range of drive frequencies, the system reaches a steady state with sub-thermal values of the density-density correlator. The presence of such sub-thermal steady states, which are absent for dynamics starting from the $|\mathbb{Z}_2\rangle$ state, imply a weak violation of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis in finite sized Rydberg chains distinct from that due to the scar-induced persistent oscillations reported earlier. We conjecture that in the thermodynamic limit such states may exist as pre-thermal steady states that show anomalously slow relaxation. We supplement our numerical results by deriving an analytic expression for the Floquet Hamiltonian using a Floquet perturbation theory in the high amplitude limit which provides an analytic, albeit qualitative, understanding of these phenomena at arbitrary drive frequencies. We discuss experiments which can test our theory.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2020

Restoring coherence via aperiodic drives in a many-body quantum system

We study the unitary dynamics of randomly or quasi-periodically driven tilted Bose-Hubbard (tBH) model in one dimension deep inside its Mott phase starting from a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry-broken state. The randomness is implemented via a telegraph noise protocol in the drive period while the quasi-periodic drive is chosen to correspond to a Thue-Morse sequence. The periodically driven tBH model (with a square pulse protocol characterized by a time period $T$) is known to exhibit transitions from dynamical regimes with long-time coherent oscillations to those with rapid thermalization. Here we show that starting from a regime where the periodic drive leads to rapid thermalization, a random drive, which consists of a random sequence of square pulses with period $T+αdT$, where $α=\pm 1$ is a random number and $dT$ is the amplitude of the noise, restores long-time coherent oscillations for special values of $dT$. A similar phenomenon can be seen for a quasi-periodic drive following a Thue-Morse sequence where such coherent behavior is shown to occur for a larger number of points in the $(T, dT)$ plane due to the additional structure of the drive protocol. We chart out the dynamics of the system in the presence of such aperiodic drives, provide a qualitative analytical understanding of this phenomenon, point out the role of quantum scars behind it, and discuss experiments which can test our theory.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Collapse and revival of quantum many-body scars via Floquet engineering

The presence of quantum scars, athermal eigenstates of a many-body Hamiltonian with finite energy density, leads to absence of ergodicity and long-time coherent dynamics in closed quantum systems starting from simple initial states. Such non-ergodic coherent dynamics, where the system does not explore its entire phase space, has been experimentally observed in a chain of ultracold Rydberg atoms. We show, via study of a periodically driven Rydberg chain, that the drive frequency acts as a tuning parameter for several reentrant transitions between ergodic and non-ergodic regimes. The former regime shows rapid thermalization of correlation functions and absence of scars in the spectrum of the system's Floquet Hamiltonian. The latter regime, in contrast, has scars in its Floquet spectrum which control the long-time coherent dynamics of correlation functions. Our results open a new possibility of drive frequency-induced tuning between ergodic and non-ergodic dynamics in experimentally realizable disorder-free quantum many-body systems.

quant-ph↗