Fock-space delocalization and its control in scarred-vs-ergodic dynamics

Abstract

Quantum many-body scarred dynamics in Rydberg-atom arrays is characterized by revivals, in which the system repeatedly returns to its initial state despite its many-body complexity. But how extensively does the wave function explore the space of allowed configurations between revivals? We address this question by quantifying the fraction of configurations occupied during PXP dynamics initialized from the paradigmatic polarized and Néel states, which respectively exhibit thermalizing and scarred dynamics. Despite their striking revivals, dynamics from the Néel state spreads over exponentially many configurations, yet occupies a vanishing fraction of the full space in the thermodynamic limit. Dynamics from the polarized state, by contrast, occupies a finite fraction of the configuration space, close to anticoncentration and random-state statistics, although chiral symmetry limits this fraction to one third. A weak quasiperiodic field enables the polarized state to occupy half of the configuration space by lifting the constraint imposed by chiral symmetry. The Néel state, however, requires a stronger field to reach a comparable anticoncentrated regime. As the field increases further, the occupied fraction decreases for both initial states, revealing a nonmonotonic dependence of Fock-space delocalization on field strength without necessarily implying localization.