Spectral Chaos Does Not Determine Quantum Mpemba Crossings

Abstract

In a symmetry-restoration quantum Mpemba effect, an initial state with stronger local symmetry breaking can lose that memory faster than a state that starts closer to the symmetric manifold. We test whether this local ordering reversal is organized by chaotic thermalization in a clean U(1)-conserving spin chain, comparing spectral level statistics with crossings of the entanglement asymmetry for the same Hamiltonians. We find that Gaussian orthogonal ensemble (GOE)-like level statistics alone do not determine whether Mpemba crossings occur. Across field textures, GOE-like spectra can occur with or without entanglement-asymmetry crossings, and crossings can also appear away from the GOE reference. A near-staggered detuned control further shows that even an inversion of the total charge-sector coherence need not produce an entanglement-asymmetry crossing. Thus the crossing response is controlled not by spectral chaos alone, but by how local charge-sector coherence enters the reduced density matrix.