[{"has_accepted_license":"1","title":"Quasi-solitons in Rydberg atom chains","OA_place":"publisher","date_created":"2026-07-27T07:26:27Z","publication":"Nature Communications","file_date_updated":"2026-09-09T07:04:48Z","researchdata_availability":"yes","fulldoi":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75598-1","date_updated":"2026-09-17T10:54:09Z","supplementarymaterial":"yes","month":"08","author":[{"id":"ade85a9c-3200-11ee-973b-91c1eb240410","full_name":"Kerschbaumer, Aron","orcid":"0009-0002-2370-8661","last_name":"Kerschbaumer","first_name":"Aron"},{"last_name":"Desaules","first_name":"Jean-Yves Marc","orcid":"0000-0002-3749-6375","full_name":"Desaules, Jean-Yves Marc","id":"6c292945-a610-11ed-9eec-c3be1ad62a80"},{"orcid":"0000-0003-0038-7068","full_name":"Ljubotina, Marko","id":"F75EE9BE-5C90-11EA-905D-16643DDC885E","first_name":"Marko","last_name":"Ljubotina"},{"orcid":"0000-0002-2399-5827","full_name":"Serbyn, Maksym","id":"47809E7E-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87","last_name":"Serbyn","first_name":"Maksym"}],"day":"21","related_material":{"record":[{"status":"public","id":"21960","relation":"research_data"}]},"user_id":"2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87","type":"journal_article","das_tickbox":"1","OA_type":"gold","external_id":{"pmid":["42469244"]},"article_type":"original","file":[{"content_type":"application/pdf","checksum":"2e12ade81e19b7eea099a2196217edff","file_id":"22863","date_created":"2026-09-09T07:04:48Z","file_size":1337815,"file_name":"2026_NatureComm_Kerschbaumer.pdf","date_updated":"2026-09-09T07:04:48Z","creator":"dernst","success":1,"access_level":"open_access","relation":"main_file"}],"abstract":[{"lang":"eng","text":"Solitons—localized wave packets that travel without spreading—play a central role in understanding transport and properties of nonlinear systems. In quantum many-body systems, however, such robust excitations are typically destroyed by thermalization. Here, we theoretically demonstrate the existence of solitonic excitations in high-energy states of Rydberg atom chains in the regime of strong nearest-neighbor Rydberg blockade. These localized wave packets propagate directionally atop a special class of reviving initial states related to quantum many-body scars and are capable of carrying energy. Exhibiting long coherence times, these states constitute a form of non-ergodic quantum dynamics and can be efficiently implemented on Rydberg atom simulators. In this work, in addition to a phenomenological description of solitons, we identify their counterpart in a classical nonlinear dynamical system, demonstrate their potential use in quantum information transfer, and conjecture their relevance for anomalous energy transport reported in numerical studies of Rydberg atom arrays."}],"corr_author":"1","oa_version":"Published Version","tmp":{"legal_code_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","name":"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0)","short":"CC BY (4.0)","image":"/images/cc_by.png"},"intvolume":"        17","citation":{"ista":"Kerschbaumer A, Desaules J-YM, Ljubotina M, Serbyn M. 2026. Quasi-solitons in Rydberg atom chains. Nature Communications. 17, 8783.","short":"A. Kerschbaumer, J.-Y.M. Desaules, M. Ljubotina, M. Serbyn, Nature Communications 17 (2026).","ama":"Kerschbaumer A, Desaules J-YM, Ljubotina M, Serbyn M. Quasi-solitons in Rydberg atom chains. <i>Nature Communications</i>. 2026;17. doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75598-1\">10.1038/s41467-026-75598-1</a>","apa":"Kerschbaumer, A., Desaules, J.-Y. M., Ljubotina, M., &#38; Serbyn, M. (2026). Quasi-solitons in Rydberg atom chains. <i>Nature Communications</i>. Springer Nature. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75598-1\">https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75598-1</a>","ieee":"A. Kerschbaumer, J.-Y. M. Desaules, M. Ljubotina, and M. Serbyn, “Quasi-solitons in Rydberg atom chains,” <i>Nature Communications</i>, vol. 17. Springer Nature, 2026.","mla":"Kerschbaumer, Aron, et al. “Quasi-Solitons in Rydberg Atom Chains.” <i>Nature Communications</i>, vol. 17, 8783, Springer Nature, 2026, doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75598-1\">10.1038/s41467-026-75598-1</a>.","chicago":"Kerschbaumer, Aron, Jean-Yves Marc Desaules, Marko Ljubotina, and Maksym Serbyn. “Quasi-Solitons in Rydberg Atom Chains.” <i>Nature Communications</i>. Springer Nature, 2026. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75598-1\">https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75598-1</a>."},"publication_identifier":{"eissn":["2041-1723"]},"DOAJ_listed":"1","ec_funded":1,"publication_status":"published","publisher":"Springer Nature","year":"2026","status":"public","date_published":"2026-08-21T00:00:00Z","dataavailabilitystatement":"The raw data used to generate the figures are available at ref54.The TEBD algorithm used in this work was implemented using the ITensor library48,49 and the integration of the classical differential equations was performed via SciPy’s Runge-Kutta RK45 integrator52,53. The code used in this study to produce the plots from the shared data is available at ref.54.","_id":"22408","PlanS_conform":"1","acknowledgement":"We acknowledge useful discussions with J.-S. Caux, E. Demler, J. Dubail, F. Essler, J. Feldmeier, S. Garratt, W. W. Ho, M. Lukin, Z. Papic, S. Rotter, F. Surace, and R. Vasseur. J.-Y.D. acknowledges funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 101034413. M. L. acknowledges support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy—EXC-2111—390814868. We acknowledge support by the Erwin Schrödinger International Institute for Mathematics and Physics (ESI). This research was funded in part by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) https://doi.org/10.55776/COE1 and the European Union—NextGenerationEU. This research was supported in part by grant NSF PHY2309135 to the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP).","doi":"10.1038/s41467-026-75598-1","volume":17,"quality_controlled":"1","ddc":["530"],"scopus_import":"1","department":[{"_id":"MaSe"},{"_id":"GradSch"}],"oa":1,"article_number":"8783","article_processing_charge":"Yes","project":[{"grant_number":"101034413","call_identifier":"H2020","name":"IST-BRIDGE: International postdoctoral program","_id":"fc2ed2f7-9c52-11eb-aca3-c01059dda49c"},{"grant_number":"COE01","name":"Quantum Science Austria (Serbyn)","_id":"92c64506-16d5-11f0-9cad-87ce313ee832"}],"pmid":1,"language":[{"iso":"eng"}]},{"ddc":["539"],"isi":1,"article_number":"040333","oa":1,"department":[{"_id":"GradSch"},{"_id":"BjHo"},{"_id":"MaSe"}],"scopus_import":"1","project":[{"_id":"23841C26-32DE-11EA-91FC-C7463DDC885E","call_identifier":"H2020","name":"Non-Ergodic Quantum Matter: Universality, Dynamics and Control","grant_number":"850899"},{"call_identifier":"FWF","name":"FWF Open Access Fund","_id":"3AC91DDA-15DF-11EA-824D-93A3E7B544D1"},{"_id":"92c64506-16d5-11f0-9cad-87ce313ee832","grant_number":"COE01","name":"Quantum Science Austria (Serbyn)"}],"article_processing_charge":"Yes","language":[{"iso":"eng"}],"abstract":[{"text":"Describing general quantum many-body dynamics is a challenging task due to the exponential growth of the Hilbert space with system size. The time-dependent variational principle (TDVP) provides a powerful tool to tackle this task by projecting quantum evolution onto a classical dynamical system within a variational manifold. In classical systems, periodic orbits play a crucial role in understanding the structure of the phase space and the long-term behavior of the system. However, finding periodic orbits is generally difficult, and their existence and properties in generic TDVP dynamics over matrix product states have remained largely unexplored. In this work, we develop an algorithm to systematically identify and characterize periodic orbits in TDVP dynamics. Applying our method to the periodically kicked Ising model, we uncover both stable and unstable periodic orbits. We characterize the Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser tori in the vicinity of stable periodic orbits and track the change of the periodic orbits as we modify the Hamiltonian parameters. We observe that periodic orbits exist at any value of the coupling constant of the kicked Ising model between prethermal and fully thermalizing regimes, but their relevance to quantum dynamics and imprint on quantum eigenstates diminishes as the system leaves the prethermal regime. Our results demonstrate that periodic orbits provide valuable insights into the TDVP approximation of quantum many-body evolution and establish a closer connection between quantum and classical chaos.","lang":"eng"}],"corr_author":"1","tmp":{"legal_code_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","name":"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0)","short":"CC BY (4.0)","image":"/images/cc_by.png"},"oa_version":"Published Version","citation":{"short":"E. Petrova, M. Ljubotina, G. Yalniz, M. Serbyn, PRX Quantum 6 (2025).","ista":"Petrova E, Ljubotina M, Yalniz G, Serbyn M. 2025. Finding periodic orbits in projected quantum many-body dynamics. PRX Quantum. 6(4), 040333.","ieee":"E. Petrova, M. Ljubotina, G. Yalniz, and M. Serbyn, “Finding periodic orbits in projected quantum many-body dynamics,” <i>PRX Quantum</i>, vol. 6, no. 4. American Physical Society, 2025.","chicago":"Petrova, Elena, Marko Ljubotina, Gökhan Yalniz, and Maksym Serbyn. “Finding Periodic Orbits in Projected Quantum Many-Body Dynamics.” <i>PRX Quantum</i>. American Physical Society, 2025. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1103/tldp-kvkd\">https://doi.org/10.1103/tldp-kvkd</a>.","mla":"Petrova, Elena, et al. “Finding Periodic Orbits in Projected Quantum Many-Body Dynamics.” <i>PRX Quantum</i>, vol. 6, no. 4, 040333, American Physical Society, 2025, doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1103/tldp-kvkd\">10.1103/tldp-kvkd</a>.","apa":"Petrova, E., Ljubotina, M., Yalniz, G., &#38; Serbyn, M. (2025). Finding periodic orbits in projected quantum many-body dynamics. <i>PRX Quantum</i>. American Physical Society. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1103/tldp-kvkd\">https://doi.org/10.1103/tldp-kvkd</a>","ama":"Petrova E, Ljubotina M, Yalniz G, Serbyn M. Finding periodic orbits in projected quantum many-body dynamics. <i>PRX Quantum</i>. 2025;6(4). doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1103/tldp-kvkd\">10.1103/tldp-kvkd</a>"},"intvolume":"         6","publisher":"American Physical Society","ec_funded":1,"DOAJ_listed":"1","publication_status":"published","publication_identifier":{"eissn":["2691-3399"]},"status":"public","year":"2025","_id":"20646","PlanS_conform":"1","date_published":"2025-11-12T00:00:00Z","doi":"10.1103/tldp-kvkd","acknowledgement":"We acknowledge useful discussions with C. Kollath, A. Green, and D. Huse. E.P., M.L., and M.S. acknowledge support by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant Agreement No. 850899). This research was funded in whole or in part by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) (Grant No. 10.55776/COE1). For open access purposes, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright license to any author accepted manuscript version arising from this submission. M.L. acknowledges support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy—EXC-2111—390814868. This research was supported in part by National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant No. PHY-2309135 to the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) and by the Erwin Schrödinger International Institute for Mathematics and Physics (ESI).","APC_amount":"3599,50 EUR","quality_controlled":"1","volume":6,"arxiv":1,"day":"12","author":[{"last_name":"Petrova","first_name":"Elena","id":"0ac84990-897b-11ed-a09c-f5abb56a4ede","full_name":"Petrova, Elena"},{"last_name":"Ljubotina","first_name":"Marko","id":"F75EE9BE-5C90-11EA-905D-16643DDC885E","full_name":"Ljubotina, Marko","orcid":"0000-0003-0038-7068"},{"first_name":"Gökhan","last_name":"Yalniz","id":"66E74FA2-D8BF-11E9-8249-8DE2E5697425","full_name":"Yalniz, Gökhan","orcid":"0000-0002-8490-9312"},{"last_name":"Serbyn","first_name":"Maksym","orcid":"0000-0002-2399-5827","full_name":"Serbyn, Maksym","id":"47809E7E-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87"}],"related_material":{"link":[{"relation":"press_release","url":"https://ista.ac.at/en/news/reaching-for-the-quantum-scars/","description":"News on ISTA website"}]},"user_id":"2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87","type":"journal_article","OA_type":"gold","external_id":{"isi":["001616473700003"],"arxiv":["2504.12472"]},"article_type":"original","file":[{"relation":"main_file","access_level":"open_access","creator":"gyalniz","success":1,"file_size":2504713,"file_name":"tldp-kvkd.pdf","date_updated":"2025-11-14T09:44:10Z","date_created":"2025-11-14T09:44:10Z","file_id":"20647","checksum":"5d6d04ac518b4118405334e1ddc7a56d","content_type":"application/pdf"}],"title":"Finding periodic orbits in projected quantum many-body dynamics","has_accepted_license":"1","OA_place":"publisher","date_created":"2025-11-14T09:40:52Z","publication":"PRX Quantum","file_date_updated":"2025-11-14T09:44:10Z","date_updated":"2026-09-16T07:04:35Z","fulldoi":"https://doi.org/10.1103/tldp-kvkd","month":"11","issue":"4"},{"article_type":"original","file":[{"access_level":"open_access","relation":"main_file","success":1,"creator":"dernst","file_size":483879,"file_name":"2025_PhysReviewResearch_Brighi.pdf","date_updated":"2025-12-01T08:00:19Z","date_created":"2025-12-01T08:00:19Z","content_type":"application/pdf","checksum":"c4e582ab64ab9f8fface70bf2fd31882","file_id":"20715"}],"external_id":{"arxiv":["2504.02460"]},"OA_type":"gold","type":"journal_article","user_id":"2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87","author":[{"last_name":"Brighi","first_name":"Pietro","id":"4115AF5C-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87","full_name":"Brighi, Pietro","orcid":"0000-0002-7969-2729"},{"id":"F75EE9BE-5C90-11EA-905D-16643DDC885E","full_name":"Ljubotina, Marko","orcid":"0000-0003-0038-7068","last_name":"Ljubotina","first_name":"Marko"},{"full_name":"Roccati, Federico","last_name":"Roccati","first_name":"Federico"},{"last_name":"Balducci","first_name":"Federico","full_name":"Balducci, Federico"}],"day":"01","arxiv":1,"month":"10","issue":"4","date_updated":"2026-09-16T07:06:16Z","fulldoi":"https://doi.org/10.1103/crwj-x7j8","file_date_updated":"2025-12-01T08:00:19Z","publication":"Physical Review Research","date_created":"2025-11-30T23:02:08Z","OA_place":"publisher","title":"Finite steady-state current defies non-Hermitian many-body localization","has_accepted_license":"1","language":[{"iso":"eng"}],"article_processing_charge":"Yes (via OA deal)","project":[{"_id":"92c64506-16d5-11f0-9cad-87ce313ee832","grant_number":"COE01","name":"Quantum Science Austria (Serbyn)"}],"oa":1,"article_number":"L042014","scopus_import":"1","department":[{"_id":"MaSe"}],"ddc":["530"],"quality_controlled":"1","volume":7,"doi":"10.1103/crwj-x7j8","acknowledgement":"F.B. thanks Giuseppe de Tomasi and Oskar A. Prośniak for discussion. P.B. acknowledges support by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) (Grant Agreement No. 10.55776/ESP9057324). This research was funded in whole or in part by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [10.55776/COE1]. The numerical simulations were performed using the ITensor library [73] on the Vienna Scientific Cluster (VSC) and on the MPIPKS HPC cluster. M.L. acknowledges support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy—EXC-2111—390814868. F.R. acknowledges support by the European Union-Next Generation EU with the project “Quantum Optics in Many-Body photonic Environments” (QOMBE) code SOE2024_0000084-CUP B77G24000480006. Open\r\naccess publication funded by Max Planck Society.","_id":"20709","PlanS_conform":"1","date_published":"2025-10-01T00:00:00Z","status":"public","year":"2025","publisher":"American Physical Society","publication_status":"published","DOAJ_listed":"1","publication_identifier":{"eissn":["2643-1564"]},"citation":{"ama":"Brighi P, Ljubotina M, Roccati F, Balducci F. Finite steady-state current defies non-Hermitian many-body localization. <i>Physical Review Research</i>. 2025;7(4). doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1103/crwj-x7j8\">10.1103/crwj-x7j8</a>","apa":"Brighi, P., Ljubotina, M., Roccati, F., &#38; Balducci, F. (2025). Finite steady-state current defies non-Hermitian many-body localization. <i>Physical Review Research</i>. American Physical Society. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1103/crwj-x7j8\">https://doi.org/10.1103/crwj-x7j8</a>","ieee":"P. Brighi, M. Ljubotina, F. Roccati, and F. Balducci, “Finite steady-state current defies non-Hermitian many-body localization,” <i>Physical Review Research</i>, vol. 7, no. 4. American Physical Society, 2025.","mla":"Brighi, Pietro, et al. “Finite Steady-State Current Defies Non-Hermitian Many-Body Localization.” <i>Physical Review Research</i>, vol. 7, no. 4, L042014, American Physical Society, 2025, doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1103/crwj-x7j8\">10.1103/crwj-x7j8</a>.","chicago":"Brighi, Pietro, Marko Ljubotina, Federico Roccati, and Federico Balducci. “Finite Steady-State Current Defies Non-Hermitian Many-Body Localization.” <i>Physical Review Research</i>. American Physical Society, 2025. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1103/crwj-x7j8\">https://doi.org/10.1103/crwj-x7j8</a>.","short":"P. Brighi, M. Ljubotina, F. Roccati, F. Balducci, Physical Review Research 7 (2025).","ista":"Brighi P, Ljubotina M, Roccati F, Balducci F. 2025. Finite steady-state current defies non-Hermitian many-body localization. Physical Review Research. 7(4), L042014."},"intvolume":"         7","tmp":{"legal_code_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","name":"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0)","short":"CC BY (4.0)","image":"/images/cc_by.png"},"oa_version":"Published Version","abstract":[{"text":"Non-Hermitian many-body localization (NH MBL) has emerged as a possible scenario for stable localization in open systems, as suggested by spectral indicators identifying a putative transition for finite system sizes. In this work, we shift the focus to dynamical probes, specifically the steady-state spin current, to investigate transport properties in a disordered, non-Hermitian XXZ spin chain. Through exact diagonalization for small systems and tensor-network methods for larger chains, we demonstrate that the steady-state current remains finite and decays exponentially with disorder strength, showing no evidence of a transition up to disorder values far beyond the previously claimed critical point. Our results reveal a stark discrepancy between spectral indicators, which suggest localization, and transport behavior, which indicates delocalization. This highlights the importance of dynamical observables in characterizing NH MBL and suggests that traditional spectral measures may not fully capture the physics of non-Hermitian systems. Additionally, we observe a noncommutativity of limits in system size and time, further complicating the interpretation of finite-size studies. These findings challenge the existence of NH MBL in the studied model and underscore the need for alternative approaches to understanding localization in non-Hermitian settings.","lang":"eng"}]}]