Grand-canonical-like thermalization of quantum many-body scars in kinetically constrained systems
Phys. Rev. E 114, 034147 – Published 30 September, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/879z-638m
Abstract
Quantum many-body scars (QMBSs) in kinetically constrained systems provide a prominent example of weak ergodicity breaking beyond the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH). In this work we formulate an open-system perspective on constrained dynamics, where kinetic constraints are interpreted as a balance of information exchange between the system and an auxiliary environment. This viewpoint naturally introduces a quasiparticle number that characterizes the information balance and motivates a revised ETH for constrained systems. Specifically, the eigenstate expectation values of local observables can be approximated by a grand-canonical-like average defined on the energy–quasiparticle-number plane. For the off-diagonal part of local observables, the relevant density of states (DOS) is generalized to the same plane and controls the typical magnitude of off-diagonal matrix elements. The revised ETH accurately describes long-time averages and temporal fluctuations of local observables for both QMBSs and thermal dynamics. Within this framework, scarred dynamics arises from low-DOS regions on the energy–quasiparticle-number plane, where off-diagonal elements are less suppressed and the approximate spectrum-generating algebra becomes more pronounced. Our results provide a unified description of thermalization and QMBSs in kinetically constrained systems.
