Experimental feasibility of characterizing quantum scars in a ⁸⁷Rb spinor Bose-Einstein condensate

The precise relationship between states that are thermal or nonthermal and states that are quantum scarred or regular is unknown, and spinor Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) are a useful platform to study this relationship. Here, we discuss an experimental protocol of using a spin-1 ⁸⁷Rb BEC in a far-detuned optical harmonic trap to probe scarred and regular quantum states. We consider the regime where the internal spin dynamics can be decoupled from the external dynamics, and thus the population and relative phase of each spin component may be controlled via a uniform magnetic and RF field. The different dynamics of regular and scarred states will be studied by measuring the populations of each spin state over time, as well as the probabilities of quantum revivals, using a Stern-Gerlach technique.