How to seed ergodic dynamics of interacting bosons under conditions of many-body quantum chaos

We demonstrate how the initial state of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice controls the emergence of ergodic dynamics as the underlying spectral structure is tuned into the quantum chaotic regime. Distinct initial states’ chaos threshold values in terms of tunneling as compared to interaction strength are identified, as well as dynamical signatures of the chaos transition, on the level of experimentally accessible observables and time scales.