Strong quantum scarring by local impurities

2016

We discover and characterize strong quantum scars, or eigenstates resembling classical periodic orbits, in two-dimensional quantum wells perturbed by local impurities. These scars are not explained by ordinary scar theory, which would require the existence of short, moderately unstable periodic orbits in the perturbed system. Instead, they are supported by classical resonances in the unperturbed system and the resulting quantum near-degeneracy. Even in the case of a large number of randomly scattered impurities, the scars prefer distinct orientations that extremize the overlap with the impurities. We demonstrate that these preferred orientations can be used for highly efficient transport of…