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

TL;DR

This paper explores how adjusting constraints in 1D spin-1 PXP models can induce, break, or restore ergodicity, revealing diverse non-ergodic behaviors and their effects on quantum dynamics.

Contribution

It demonstrates the controlled manipulation of ergodicity types in spin-1 PXP chains through constraint adjustments, including novel forms of non-integrability and Hilbert space shattering.

Findings

Hilbert space shattering into many subsectors

Emergence of extensive local conserved quantities

Restoration of ergodicity through constraint tuning

Abstract

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.