Antiscarring from eigenstate stacking in a chaotic spinor condensate

TL;DR

This paper explores quantum scarring and antiscar phenomena in many-particle chaotic systems, specifically a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate, revealing how scarred states influence the entire spectrum beyond traditional theories.

Contribution

It extends the eigenstate stacking theorem to many-particle systems and applies it to experimentally relevant chaotic spinor condensates, linking early-time dynamics to eigenstate structure.

Findings

Quantum scars are balanced by antiscarred states to maintain phase space uniformity.

The extended stacking theorem explains eigenstate distribution in many-particle chaos.

Experimental observations of scarred dynamics in spinor BECs support the theory.

Abstract

We reveal a feature of quantum scarring in systems with many particles: Quantum scars, living densely near an unstable periodic orbit, must be compensated by corresponding antiscarred states suppressed there to establish the uniformity of the whole. The uniformity of the underlying phase space is linked to early-time dynamics -- a regime beyond the predictions of random matrix theory and encapsulated in the eigenstate stacking theorem. By extending the domain of the stacking theorem, we apply our theory to a chaotic spinor Bose-Einstein condensate, whose quantum scar dynamics have recently been observed in the laboratory. Our work uncovers how scarring of some eigenstates affects the rest of the chaotic and thermal spectrum in quantum systems with many particles.