Antiscarring: the secretive companion of quantum scars

The scarring of a single-particle wave function is a captivating quantum-chaotic phenomenon where quantum interference leads to the probability density of a quantum state to become concentrated in the vicinity of a short unstable periodic orbit of the associated chaotic classical system. In other words, the state bears an imprint of a classical periodic orbit. Furthermore, this conventional way of scarring has expanded to include two new variants, namely many-body and variational scars. Here, while a quantum scar vividly illustrates the quantum-mechanical suppression of classical chaos, we however introduce its necessary but elusive consequence -- antiscarring: a depression of the probability density in other quantum states along the path of the scar-generating periodic orbit. We will not only establish the existence of antiscarring but also explore its experimental implications and significance within the framework of quantum ergodicity.