Phantom Bethe roots in the integrable open spin $1/2$ $XXZ$ chain

We investigate special solutions to the Bethe Ansatz equations (BAE) for open integrable $XXZ$ Heisenberg spin chains containing phantom (infinite) Bethe roots. The phantom Bethe roots do not contribute to the energy of the Bethe state, so the energy is determined exclusively by the remaining regular excitations. We rederive the phantom Bethe roots criterion and focus on BAE solutions for mixtures of phantom roots and regular (finite) Bethe roots. We prove that in the presence of phantom Bethe roots, all eigenstates are split between two invariant subspaces, spanned by chiral shock states. Bethe eigenstates are described by two complementary sets of Bethe Ansatz equations for regular roots, one for each invariant subspace. The respective "semi-phantom" Bethe vectors are states of chiral nature, with chirality properties getting less pronounced when more regular Bethe roots are added. For the easy plane case "semi-phantom" Bethe states carry nonzero magnetic current, and are characterized by quasi-periodic modulation of the magnetization profile, the most prominent example being the spin helix states (SHS). We illustrate our results investigating "semi-phantom" Bethe states generated by one regular Bethe root (the other Bethe roots being phantom), with simple structure of the invariant subspace, in all details. We obtain the explicit expressions for Bethe vectors, and calculate the simplest correlation functions, including the spin-current for all the states in the single particle multiplet.