Quantum many-body scarring from Kramers-Wannier duality

Abstract

Kramers-Wannier duality, a hallmark of the Ising model, has recently gained renewed interest through its reinterpretation as a non-invertible symmetry with a state-level action. Using sequential quantum circuits (SQC), we argue that this duality governs the stability of quantum many-body scar (QMBS) states in a nonintegrable model, depending on whether the dual preserves the embedding conditions for scarring. This is supported by good agreement between first-order perturbation theory and numerics, which capture scar dynamics despite chaotic spectra. Our results establish non-invertible dualities as both a generative mechanism and a diagnostic tool for quantum many- body scarring, offering a generalized symmetry-based route to weak ergodicity breaking.