R. Swietek: From Quantum Chaos to Ergodicity Breaking Transitions

Eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) represents a breakthrough in many-body physics since it allows to link thermalization of physical observables with the applicability of random matrix theory (RMT). Recent years were also extremely fruitful in exploring possible counterexamples to thermalization, ranging, among others, from integrability, single-particle chaos, many-body localization, many-body scars, to Hilbert-space fragmentation. In all these cases the conventional ETH is violated. However, it remains elusive how the conventional ETH breaks down when one approaches the boundaries of ergodicity, and whether the range of validity of the conventional ETH coincides with the validity of RMT-like spectral statistics. Here we bridge this gap and we introduce a scenario of the ETH breakdown in many-body quantum systems, dubbed fading ergodicity regime, which establishes a link between the conventional ETH and non-ergodic behavior. Next, we demonstrate that the breakdown of the ETH at the interaction-driven ergodicity-breaking critical point in the quantum sun model gives rise to to the maximally divergent fidelity susceptibility. We further extend our analysis to the energy-driven ergodicity-breaking transition associated with the many-body mobility edge. Specifically, we show that fidelity susceptibilities at energies away from the middle of the spectrum exhibit a divergent peak near the mobility edge. Finally, we argue that fading ergodicity provides a simple and accurate description of the ETH breakdown in the quantum sun model, which is accompanied with the emergence of a peak in fidelity susceptibility and the onset of maximal chaos at the ergodicity-breaking critical point.