Preparing Quantum Many-Body Scar States on Quantum Computers

Abstract

Quantum many-body scar states are highly excited eigenstates of many-body systems that exhibit atypical entanglement and correlation properties relative to other eigenstates at the same energy density. Scar states also give rise to infinitely long-lived coherent dynamics when the system is prepared in a special initial state having finite overlap with them. Many models with exact scar states have been constructed, but the fate of scarred eigenstates and dynamics when these models are perturbed is difficult to study with classical computational techniques. In this work, we propose state preparation protocols for individual scar states in a particular model, as well as superpositions of them that give rise to coherent dynamics. For superpositions of scar states, we propose both a linear depth unitary and a finite-depth nonunitary state preparation protocol, the latter of which uses measurement and postselection to reduce the circuit depth. For individual scarred eigenstates, we propose a circuit architecture with polynomial depth. We also provide proof of principle implementations of these protocols on superconducting quantum hardware.