- Open Access
Systematic construction of asymptotic quantum many-body scar states and their relation to supersymmetric quantum mechanics
Phys. Rev. Research 7, 043107 – Published 27 October, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/zstl-s1y2
Abstract
We develop a systematic method for constructing asymptotic quantum many-body scar (AQMBS) states. While AQMBS states are closely related to quantum many-body scar (QMBS) states, they exhibit key differences. Unlike QMBS states, AQMBS states are not energy eigenstates of the Hamiltonian, making their construction more challenging. We demonstrate that, under appropriate conditions, AQMBS states can be obtained as low-lying gapless excited states of a parent Hamiltonian, which has a QMBS state as its ground state. Furthermore, our formalism reveals a connection between QMBS and supersymmetric (SUSY) quantum mechanics. The QMBS state can be interpreted as a SUSY-unbroken ground state.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Corrections
15 December, 2025
Correction: In the summation in Eq. (75), has been changed to .
11 February, 2026
Second Correction: In Eq. (112), the first term has been changed from to .
Article Text
References (113)
- J. M. Deutsch, Quantum statistical mechanics in a closed system, Phys. Rev. A 43, 2046 (1991).
- M. Srednicki, Chaos and quantum thermalization, Phys. Rev. E 50, 888 (1994).
- M. Rigol, V. Dunjko, and M. Olshanii, Thermalization and its mechanism for generic isolated quantum systems, Nature (London) 452, 854 (2008).
- L. D'Alessio, Y. Kafri, A. Polkovnikov, and M. Rigol, From quantum chaos and eigenstate thermalization to statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, Adv. Phys. 65, 239 (2016).
- T. Mori, T. N. Ikeda, E. Kaminishi, and M. Ueda, Thermalization and prethermalization in isolated quantum systems: a theoretical overview, J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 51, 112001 (2018).
- I. V. Gornyi, A. D. Mirlin, and D. G. Polyakov, Interacting electrons in disordered wires: Anderson localization and low-T transport, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 206603 (2005).
- D. M. Basko, I. L. Aleiner, and B. L. Altshuler, Possible experimental manifestations of the many-body localization, Phys. Rev. B 76, 052203 (2007).
- D. A. Huse, R. Nandkishore, and V. Oganesyan, Phenomenology of fully many-body-localized systems, Phys. Rev. B 90, 174202 (2014).
- H. Bernien, S. Schwartz, A. Keesling, H. Levine, A. Omran, H. Pichler, S. Choi, A. S. Zibrov, M. Endres, M. Greiner, V. Vuletić, and M. D. Lukin, Probing many-body dynamics on a 51-atom quantum simulator, Nature (London) 551, 579 (2017).
- C. J. Turner, A. A. Michailidis, D. A. Abanin, M. Serbyn, and Z. Papić, Weak ergodicity breaking from quantum many-body scars, Nat. Phys. 14, 745 (2018).
- C. Turner, A. Michailidis, D. Abanin, M. Serbyn, and Z. Papić, Quantum scarred eigenstates in a Rydberg atom chain: Entanglement, breakdown of thermalization, and stability to perturbations, Phys. Rev. B 98, 155134 (2018).
- P. Sala, T. Rakovszky, R. Verresen, M. Knap, and F. Pollmann, Ergodicity breaking arising from Hilbert space fragmentation in dipole-conserving Hamiltonians, Phys. Rev. X 10, 011047 (2020).
- V. Khemani, M. Hermele, and R. Nandkishore, Localization from Hilbert space shattering: From theory to physical realizations, Phys. Rev. B 101, 174204 (2020).
- M. Serbyn, D. A. Abanin, and Z. Papić, Quantum many-body scars and weak breaking of ergodicity, Nat. Phys. 17, 675 (2021).
- Z. Papić, Weak ergodicity breaking through the lens of quantum entanglement, in Entanglement in Spin Chains: From Theory to Quantum Technology Applications, edited by A. Bayat, S. Bose, and H. Johannesson (Springer, Cham, 2022), pp. 341–395.
- S. Moudgalya, B. A. Bernevig, and N. Regnault, Quantum many-body scars and Hilbert space fragmentation: A review of exact results, Rep. Prog. Phys. 85, 086501 (2022).
- A. Chandran, T. Iadecola, V. Khemani, and R. Moessner, Quantum many-body scars: A quasiparticle perspective, Annu. Rev. Condens. Matter Phys. 14, 443 (2023).
- S. Choi, C. J. Turner, H. Pichler, W. W. Ho, A. A. Michailidis, Z. Papić, M. Serbyn, M. D. Lukin, and D. A. Abanin, Emergent SU(2) dynamics and perfect quantum many-body scars, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 220603 (2019).
- W. W. Ho, S. Choi, H. Pichler, and M. D. Lukin, Periodic orbits, entanglement, and quantum many-body scars in constrained models: Matrix product state approach, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 040603 (2019).
- C.-J. Lin and O. I. Motrunich, Exact quantum many-body scar states in the Rydberg-blockaded atom chain, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 173401 (2019).
- M. Schecter and T. Iadecola, Weak ergodicity breaking and quantum many-body scars in spin-1 XY magnets, Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 147201 (2019).
- N. Shiraishi, Connection between quantum-many-body scars and the Affleck–Kennedy–Lieb–Tasaki model from the viewpoint of embedded Hamiltonians, J. Stat. Mech. (2019) 083103.
- S. Ok, K. Choo, C. Mudry, C. Castelnovo, C. Chamon, and T. Neupert, Topological many-body scar states in dimensions one, two, and three, Phys. Rev. Res. 1, 033144 (2019).
- T. Iadecola and M. Schecter, Quantum many-body scar states with emergent kinetic constraints and finite-entanglement revivals, Phys. Rev. B 101, 024306 (2020).
- K. Bull, J.-Y. Desaules, and Z. Papić, Quantum scars as embeddings of weakly broken Lie algebra representations, Phys. Rev. B 101, 165139 (2020).
- S. Chattopadhyay, H. Pichler, M. D. Lukin, and W. W. Ho, Quantum many-body scars from virtual entangled pairs, Phys. Rev. B 101, 174308 (2020).
- K. Lee, R. Melendrez, A. Pal, and H. J. Changlani, Exact three-colored quantum scars from geometric frustration, Phys. Rev. B 101, 241111(R) (2020).
- Á. M. Alhambra, A. Anshu, and H. Wilming, Revivals imply quantum many-body scars, Phys. Rev. B 101, 205107 (2020).
- C.-J. Lin, V. Calvera, and T. H. Hsieh, Quantum many-body scar states in two-dimensional Rydberg atom arrays, Phys. Rev. B 101, 220304 (2020).
- D. K. Mark and O. I. Motrunich, -pairing states as true scars in an extended Hubbard model, Phys. Rev. B 102, 075132 (2020).
- D. K. Mark, C.-J. Lin, and O. I. Motrunich, Unified structure for exact towers of scar states in the Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki and other models, Phys. Rev. B 101, 195131 (2020).
- S. Moudgalya, N. Regnault, and B. A. Bernevig, -pairing in Hubbard models: From spectrum generating algebras to quantum many-body scars, Phys. Rev. B 102, 085140 (2020).
- S. Moudgalya, E. O'Brien, B. A. Bernevig, P. Fendley, and N. Regnault, Large classes of quantum scarred Hamiltonians from matrix product states, Phys. Rev. B 102, 085120 (2020).
- A. Michailidis, C. Turner, Z. Papić, D. Abanin, and M. Serbyn, Stabilizing two-dimensional quantum scars by deformation and synchronization, Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 022065 (2020).
- N. O'Dea, F. Burnell, A. Chandran, and V. Khemani, From tunnels to towers: Quantum scars from Lie algebras and q-deformed Lie algebras, Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 043305 (2020).
- N. Shibata, N. Yoshioka, and H. Katsura, Onsager’s scars in disordered spin chains, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 180604 (2020).
- K. Pakrouski, P. N. Pallegar, F. K. Popov, and I. R. Klebanov, Many-body scars as a group invariant sector of Hilbert space, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 230602 (2020).
- Y. Kuno, T. Mizoguchi, and Y. Hatsugai, Flat band quantum scar, Phys. Rev. B 102, 241115 (2020).
- K. Mizuta, K. Takasan, and N. Kawakami, Exact Floquet quantum many-body scars under Rydberg blockade, Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 033284 (2020).
- A. Hudomal, I. Vasić, N. Regnault, and Z. Papić, Quantum scars of bosons with correlated hopping, Commun. Phys. 3, 99 (2020).
- F. M. Surace, G. Giudici, and M. Dalmonte, Weak-ergodicity-breaking via lattice supersymmetry, Quantum 4, 339 (2020).
- S. Sugiura, T. Kuwahara, and K. Saito, Many-body scar state intrinsic to periodically driven system, Phys. Rev. Res. 3, L012010 (2021).
- K. Pakrouski, P. N. Pallegar, F. K. Popov, and I. R. Klebanov, Group theoretic approach to many-body scar states in fermionic lattice models, Phys. Rev. Res. 3, 043156 (2021).
- I. Mondragon-Shem, M. G. Vavilov, and I. Martin, Fate of quantum many-body scars in the presence of disorder, PRX Quantum 2, 030349 (2021).
- E. Chertkov and B. K. Clark, Motif magnetism and quantum many-body scars, Phys. Rev. B 104, 104410 (2021).
- J. Ren, C. Liang, and C. Fang, Quasisymmetry groups and many-body scar dynamics, Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 120604 (2021).
- J. Ren, C. Liang, and C. Fang, Deformed symmetry structures and quantum many-body scar subspaces, Phys. Rev. Res. 4, 013155 (2022).
- C. M. Langlett, Z.-C. Yang, J. Wildeboer, A. V. Gorshkov, T. Iadecola, and S. Xu, Rainbow scars: From area to volume law, Phys. Rev. B 105, L060301 (2022).
- K. Tamura and H. Katsura, Quantum many-body scars of spinless fermions with density-assisted hopping in higher dimensions, Phys. Rev. B 106, 144306 (2022).
- J.-Y. Desaules, F. Pietracaprina, Z. Papić, J. Goold, and S. Pappalardi, Extensive multipartite entanglement from su(2) quantum many-body scars, Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 020601 (2022).
- L. Gotta, L. Mazza, P. Simon, and G. Roux, Exact many-body scars based on pairs or multimers in a chain of spinless fermions, Phys. Rev. B 106, 235147 (2022).
- L.-H. Tang, N. O'Dea, and A. Chandran, Multimagnon quantum many-body scars from tensor operators, Phys. Rev. Res. 4, 043006 (2022).
- J. Wildeboer, C. M. Langlett, Z.-C. Yang, A. V. Gorshkov, T. Iadecola, and S. Xu, Quantum many-body scars from Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen states in bilayer systems, Phys. Rev. B 106, 205142 (2022).
- K. Omiya and M. Müller, Fractionalization paves the way to local projector embeddings of quantum many-body scars, Phys. Rev. B 108, 054412 (2023).
- K. Omiya and M. Müller, Quantum many-body scars in bipartite Rydberg arrays originating from hidden projector embedding, Phys. Rev. A 107, 023318 (2023).
- J.-Y. Desaules, D. Banerjee, A. Hudomal, Z. Papić, A. Sen, and J. C. Halimeh, Weak ergodicity breaking in the Schwinger model, Phys. Rev. B 107, L201105 (2023).
- J.-Y. Desaules, A. Hudomal, D. Banerjee, A. Sen, Z. Papić, and J. C. Halimeh, Prominent quantum many-body scars in a truncated Schwinger model, Phys. Rev. B 107, 205112 (2023).
- K. Sanada, Y. Miao, and H. Katsura, Quantum many-body scars in spin models with multibody interactions, Phys. Rev. B 108, 155102 (2023).
- M. Iversen and A. E. Nielsen, Tower of quantum scars in a partially many-body localized system, Phys. Rev. B 107, 205140 (2023).
- J. C. Halimeh, L. Barbiero, P. Hauke, F. Grusdt, and A. Bohrdt, Robust quantum many-body scars in lattice gauge theories, Quantum 7, 1004 (2023).
- R. Kaneko, M. Kunimi, and I. Danshita, Quantum many-body scars in the Bose-Hubbard model with a three-body constraint, Phys. Rev. A 109, L011301 (2024).
- H.-R. Wang, D. Yuan, S.-Y. Zhang, Z. Wang, D.-L. Deng, and L.-M. Duan, Embedding quantum many-body scars into decoherence-free subspaces, Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 150401 (2024).
- M. Kunimi, T. Tomita, H. Katsura, and Y. Kato, Proposal for simulating quantum spin models with the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction using Rydberg atoms and the construction of asymptotic quantum many-body scar states, Phys. Rev. A 110, 043312 (2024).
- C. Matsui, Exactly solvable subspaces of nonintegrable spin chains with boundaries and quasiparticle interactions, Phys. Rev. B 109, 104307 (2024).
- A. Teretenkov and O. Lychkovskiy, Duality between open systems and closed bilayer systems: Thermofield double states as quantum many-body scars, Phys. Rev. B 110, L241105 (2024).
- M. Nakagawa, H. Katsura, and M. Ueda, Exact eigenstates of multicomponent Hubbard models: SU () magnetic pairing, weak ergodicity breaking, and partial integrability, Phys. Rev. Res. 6, 043259 (2024).
- S. Moudgalya and O. I. Motrunich, Exhaustive characterization of quantum many-body scars using commutant algebras, Phys. Rev. X 14, 041069 (2024).
- S. Moudgalya and O. I. Motrunich, Symmetries as ground states of local superoperators: Hydrodynamic implications, PRX Quantum 5, 040330 (2024).
- K. Sanada, Y. Miao, and H. Katsura, Towers of quantum many-body scars from integrable boundary states, arXiv:2411.01270.
- S. Imai and N. Tsuji, Quantum many-body scars with unconventional superconducting pairing symmetries via multibody interactions, Phys. Rev. Res. 7, 013064 (2025).
- G. Calajó, G. Cataldi, M. Rigobello, D. Wanisch, G. Magnifico, P. Silvi, S. Montangero, and J. C. Halimeh, Quantum many-body scarring in a non-Abelian lattice gauge theory, Phys. Rev. Res. 7, 013322 (2025).
- D. Bluvstein, A. Omran, H. Levine, A. Keesling, G. Semeghini, S. Ebadi, T. T. Wang, A. A. Michailidis, N. Maskara, W. W. Ho, S. Choi, M. Serbyn, M. Greiner, V. Vuletić, and M. D. Lukin, Controlling quantum many-body dynamics in driven Rydberg atom arrays, Science 371, 1355 (2021).
- P. Zhang, H. Dong, Y. Gao, L. Zhao, J. Hao, J.-Y. Desaules, Q. Guo, J. Chen, J. Deng, B. Liu, W. Ren, Y. Yao, X. Zhang, S. Xu, K. Wang, F. Jin, X. Zhu, B. Zhang, L. Hekang, C. Song et al., Many-body Hilbert space scarring on a superconducting processor, Nat. Phys. 19, 120 (2023).
- G.-X. Su, H. Sun, A. Hudomal, J.-Y. Desaules, Z.-Y. Zhou, B. Yang, J. C. Halimeh, Z.-S. Yuan, Z. Papić, and J.-W. Pan, Observation of many-body scarring in a Bose-Hubbard quantum simulator, Phys. Rev. Res. 5, 023010 (2023).
- L. Zhao, P. R. Datla, W. Tian, M. M. Aliyu, and H. Loh, Observation of quantum thermalization restricted to Hilbert space fragments and scars, Phys. Rev. X 15, 011035 (2025).
- L. Gotta, S. Moudgalya, and L. Mazza, Asymptotic quantum many-body scars, Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 190401 (2023).
- L. Mandelstam and I. Tamm, The uncertainty relation between energy and time in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, J. Phys. USSR 9, 249 (1945).
- Z. Gong and R. Hamazaki, Bounds in nonequilibrium quantum dynamics, Int. J. Mod. Phys. B 36, 2230007 (2022).
- J. Ren, Y.-P. Wang, and C. Fang, Quasi-Nambu-Goldstone modes in many-body scar models, Phys. Rev. B 110, 245101 (2024).
- W. Wei and L. Zhang, Spectroscopic feature of quantum many-body scar states, Chin. Phys. Lett. 42, 020502 (2025).
- S. Kodama, A. Tanaka, and Y. Kato, Spin parity effects in a monoaxial chiral ferromagnetic chain, Phys. Rev. B 107, 024403 (2023).
- E. Witten, Dynamical breaking of supersymmetry, Nucl. Phys. B 188, 513 (1981).
- E. Witten, Constraints on supersymmetry breaking, Nucl. Phys. B 202, 253 (1982).
- P. Fendley, K. Schoutens, and J. de Boer, Lattice models with supersymmetry, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 120402 (2003).
- P. Fendley, B. Nienhuis, and K. Schoutens, Lattice fermion models with supersymmetry, J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 36, 12399 (2003).
- This relation can be obtained by the assumption . From the definition of , we have , where is a direct product state. Then, we obtain . For this equation to hold, it is necessary that for any and . As a special case, we obtain .
- The relation can be proven as follows: Since is the generator of the onsite symmetry, we can show that holds for any product state in , where is an eigenvalue of in . Furthermore, we also obtain , where is a real number. From these relations, and commute with . Therefore, we obtain .
- S. Moudgalya, N. Regnault, and B. A. Bernevig, Entanglement of exact excited states of Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki models: Exact results, many-body scars, and violation of the strong eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, Phys. Rev. B 98, 235156 (2018).
- E. Lieb, T. Schultz, and D. Mattis, Two soluble models of an antiferromagnetic chain, Ann. Phys. 16, 407 (1961).
- H. Tasaki, Physics and Mathematics of Quantum Many-Body Systems (Springer, New York, 2020).
- We prove that every positive energy level is at least twofold degenerate. Let be a simultaneous eigenstate of and with eigenvalues and , respectively. If , then is an eigenstate of with the same eigenvalue . This can be seen as follows: We first note that , since otherwise we would have , which implies , contradicting our assumption that . We then see that and must be orthogonal, since they have opposite fermionic parity. Thus, it follows from Eq. (23) that and form a degenerate pair. If, on the other hand, , then we define , which is an eigenstate of with eigenvalue . By the same reasoning as before, must be nonzero and orthogonal to . Thus, in both cases, we obtain the desired result.
- A. Kitazawa, K. Hijii, and K. Nomura, An SU (2) symmetry of the one-dimensional spin-1 XY model, J. Phys. A 36, L351 (2003).
- C. N. Yang, pairing and off-diagonal long-range order in a Hubbard model, Phys. Rev. Lett. 63, 2144 (1989).
- J. Hirsch, Bond-charge repulsion and hole superconductivity, Physica C 158, 326 (1989).
- L. Arrachea and A. Aligia, Exact solution of a Hubbard chain with bond-charge interaction, Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 2240 (1994).
- A. Schadschneider, Superconductivity in an exactly solvable Hubbard model with bond-charge interaction, Phys. Rev. B 51, 10386 (1995).
- G. Gómez-Santos, Generalized hard-core fermions in one dimension: An exactly solvable Luttinger liquid, Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 3780 (1993).
- S.-A. Cheong and C. L. Henley, Exact ground states and correlation functions of chain and ladder models of interacting hardcore bosons or spinless fermions, Phys. Rev. B 80, 165124 (2009).
- L. Onsager, Crystal statistics. I. A two-dimensional model with an order-disorder transition, Phys. Rev. 65, 117 (1944).
- E. Vernier, E. O’Brien, and P. Fendley, Onsager symmetries in -invariant clock models, J. Stat. Mech. (2019) 043107.
- R. Bariev, Integrable spin chain with two-and three-particle interactions, J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 24, L549 (1991).
- R. W. Chhajlany, P. R. Grzybowski, J. Stasińska, M. Lewenstein, and O. Dutta, Hidden string order in a hole superconductor with extended correlated hopping, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 225303 (2016).
- B. Pozsgay, T. Gombor, and A. Hutsalyuk, Integrable hard-rod deformation of the Heisenberg spin chains, Phys. Rev. E 104, 064124 (2021).
- M. Borsi, L. Pristyák, and B. Pozsgay, Matrix product symmetries and breakdown of thermalization from hard rod deformations, Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 037101 (2023).
- M. Borsi and B. Pozsgay, Volume changing symmetries by matrix product operators, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 58, 065203 (2025).
- U. Schollwöck, The density-matrix renormalization group in the age of matrix product states, Ann. Phys. 326, 96 (2011).
- D. Hashimoto, M. Kunimi, and T. Nikuni, Construction of asymptotic quantum many-body scar states in the SU () Hubbard model (unpublished).
- N. Shiraishi and T. Mori, Systematic construction of counterexamples to the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 030601 (2017).
- M. Kunimi, Y. Kato, and H. Katsura, Dataset for “Systematic construction of asymptotic quantum many-body scar states and their relation to supersymmetric quantum mechanics” (version v2), Zenodo (2025), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16891505.
- V. Popkov and M. Salerno, Logarithmic divergence of the block entanglement entropy for the ferromagnetic Heisenberg model, Phys. Rev. A 71, 012301 (2005).
- R. Ma, Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorem with long-range interactions, Phys. Rev. B 110, 104412 (2024).
- Y.-N. Zhou and X. Li, Validity of the Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorem in long-range interacting systems, arXiv:2406.08948.
- M. Rice and E. Mele, Elementary excitations of a linearly conjugated diatomic polymer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 49, 1455 (1982).