Number of zero-energy eigenstates in the PXP model

Abstract

The PXP model is paradigmatic in the field of quantum many-body scars. This model has a number of zero-energy eigenstates that is exponentially large in system size. Lower bounds on the number of zero-energy eigenstates are obtained for both open and periodic (zero and $\pi$-momentum sectors) boundary conditions. These bounds are found to be tight up to system sizes accessible by numerical exact diagonalization, and can be expected to be tight in general. In addition to previous results, separate lower bounds are obtained for the spatial inversion-symmetric and inversion-antisymmetric symmetry sectors. Furthermore, the derivations improve on previous ones as these are free of assumptions.