English

Symmetry-protected topological scar subspaces

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2025-12-15 v1 Statistical Mechanics Quantum Physics

Abstract

We propose a framework that extends the notion of symmetry-protected topological properties beyond the ground-state paradigm to dynamically isolated subspaces formed by exceptional non-thermal energy eigenstates of non-integrable systems, known as quantum many-body scars (QMBS). We introduce the concept of a symmetry-protected topological (SPT) scar subspace -- a Hilbert subspace stabilized by a restricted spectrum-generating algebra (rSGA) while being protected by on-site, inversion, and time-reversal symmetries. QMBS often admit a non-interacting quasiparticle description, which enables matrix-product representations with small bond dimension. Although individual QMBS do not necessarily retain the protecting symmetries of the Hamiltonian, we show that the subspace formed by the symmetry-connected QMBS does retain them, giving rise to consistently emerging topological properties across the entire scar subspace. Using the spin-11 Affleck--Kennedy--Lieb--Tasaki (AKLT) model, we demonstrate that its bimagnon scar subspace reflects the topological properties of the SPT ground state, as evidenced by the appropriate bond-space symmetry representations, the expected topological response, and the numerically verified long-range string order. Our findings indicate that scar subspaces can inherit -- and in inhomogeneous cases systematically modify -- the topological character of the SPT ground state, offering a new and experimentally accessible platform for probing symmetry-protected topology beyond the ground-state regime.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.11216,
  title  = {Symmetry-protected topological scar subspaces},
  author = {Chihiro Matsui and Thomas Quella and Naoto Tsuji},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.11216},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

15 pages, 12 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T08:21:38.806Z