Broken Quantum Symmetry Restores Itself Faster with Greater Initial Disruption

Sreemayee Aditya and colleagues at the Institute for Theoretical Physics have discovered a counterintuitive phenomenon where a quantum system restores broken symmetry more rapidly with stronger initial symmetry breaking, known as the quantum Mpemba effect. This effect persists even when conservation laws fragment the system’s Hilbert space, resolving a long-standing question. Their investigation, combining replica tensor-network formulations with Hamiltonian simulations and a dissipative model, reveals a higher-order symmetric quantum Mpemba effect manifesting in charge and dipole…