We generalize the proof of stability of topological order, due to Bravyi, Hastings, and Michalakis, to stabilizer Hamiltonians corresponding to low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes without the restriction of geometric locality in Euclidean space. We consider Hamiltonians H 0 defined by ⟦ N , K , d ⟧ LDPC codes, which obey certain topological quantum order conditions: (i) code distance d ≥ c log ( N ) , implying local indistinguishability of ground states, and (ii) a mild condition on local and global compatibility of ground states—these include good quantum LDPC codes and the toric code on a hyperbolic lattice, among others. We consider stability under weak perturbations that are quasilocal on the interaction graph defined by H 0 and that can be represented as sums of bounded-norm terms. As long as the local perturbation strength is smaller than a finite constant, we show that the perturbed Hamiltonian has well-defined spectral bands originating from the O ( 1 ) smallest eigenvalues of H 0 . The band originating from the smallest eigenvalue has 2 K states, is separated from the rest of the spectrum by a finite energy gap, and has exponentially narrow bandwidth δ = C N e − Θ ( d ) , which is tighter than the best-known bounds even in the Euclidean case. We also obtain that the new ground-state subspace is related to the initial-code subspace by a quasilocal unitary, allowing one to relate their physical properties. Our proof uses an iterative procedure that performs successive rotations to eliminate non-frustration-free terms in the Hamiltonian. Our results extend to quantum Hamiltonians built from classical LDPC codes, which give rise to stable symmetry-breaking phases. These results show that LDPC codes very generally define stable gapped quantum phases, even in the non-Euclidean setting, initiating a systematic study of such phases of matter.
The current theoretical framework for topological phases of matter is based on the thermodynamic limit of a system with geometrically local interactions. A natural question is to what extent the notion of a phase of matter remains well-defined if we relax the constraint of geometric locality, and replace it with a weaker graph-theoretic notion of
k-locality. As a step towards answering this question, we analyze the stability of the energy gap to perturbations for Hamiltonians corresponding to general quantum low-density parity-check codes, extending work of Bravyi and Hastings [Commun. Math. Phys. 307, 609 (2011)]. A corollary of our main result is that if there exist constants
ε1,ε2>0 such that the size
Γ(r) of balls of radius
r on the interaction graph satisfy
Γ(r)=O(exp(r1−ε1)) and the local ground states of balls of radius
r≤ρ∗=O(log(n)1+ε2) are locally indistinguishable, then the energy gap of the associated Hamiltonian is stable against local perturbations. This gives an almost exponential improvement over the
D-dimensional Euclidean case, which requires
Γ(r)=O(rD) and
ρ∗=O(nα) for some
α>0. The approach we follow falls just short of proving stability of finite-rate qLDPC codes, which have
ε1=0; we discuss some strategies to extend the result to these cases. We discuss implications for the third law of thermodynamics, as
k-local Hamiltonians can have extensive zero-temperature entropy.
We rigorously show that a local spin system giving rise to a slow Hamiltonian dynamics is stable against generic, even time-dependent, local perturbations. The sum of these perturbations can cover a significant amount of the system's size. The stability of the slow dynamics follows from proving that the Lieb-Robinson bound for the dynamics of the total Hamiltonian is the sum of two contributions: the Lieb-Robinson bound of the unperturbed dynamics and an additional term coming from the Lieb-Robinson bound of the perturbations with respect to the unperturbed Hamiltonian. Our results are particularly relevant in the context of the study of the stability of Many-Body-Localized systems, implying that if a so called ergodic region is present in the system, to spread across a certain distance it takes a time proportional to the exponential of such distance. The non-perturbative nature of our result allows us to develop a dual description of the dynamics of a system. As a consequence we are able to prove that the presence of a region of disorder in a ergodic system implies the slowing down of the dynamics in the vicinity of that region.
Abstract We study the stability with respect to a broad class of perturbations of gapped ground-state phases of quantum spin systems defined by frustration-free Hamiltonians. The core result of this work is a proof using the Bravyi–Hastings–Michalakis (BHM) strategy that under a condition of local topological quantum order (LTQO), the bulk gap is stable under perturbations that decay at long distances faster than a stretched exponential. Compared to previous work, we expand the class of frustration-free quantum spin models that can be handled to include models with more general boundary conditions, and models with discrete symmetry breaking. Detailed estimates allow us to formulate sufficient conditions for the validity of positive lower bounds for the gap that are uniform in the system size and that are explicit to some degree. We provide a survey of the BHM strategy following the approach of Michalakis and Zwolak, with alterations introduced to accommodate more general than just periodic boundary conditions and more general lattices. We express the fundamental condition known as LTQO by means of an indistinguishability radius, which we introduce. Using the uniform finite-volume results, we then proceed to study the thermodynamic limit. We first study the case of a unique limiting ground state and then also consider models with spontaneous breaking of a discrete symmetry. In the latter case, LTQO cannot hold for all local observables. However, for perturbations that preserve the symmetry, we show stability of the gap and the structure of the broken symmetry phases. We prove that the GNS Hamiltonian associated with each pure state has a non-zero spectral gap above the ground state.
Abstract We prove that uniformly small short-range perturbations do not close the bulk gap above the ground state of frustration-free quantum spin systems that satisfy a standard local topological quantum order condition. In contrast with earlier results, we do not require a positive lower bound for finite-system spectral gaps uniform in the system size. To obtain this result, we extend the Bravyi–Hastings–Michalakis strategy so it can be applied to perturbations of the GNS Hamiltonian of the infinite-system ground state.
An important class of models studied in quantum statistical mechanics consists of frustration-free interactions whose Hamiltonians exhibit a gap in the spectrum above their ground state energies. This paper discusses recent techniques which dramatically extend the class of models to which stability applies when the perturbations exhibit stretched exponential decay at long distances. We consider a class of initial models satisfying an assumption that prevents splitting of the ground state space. This assumption on the structure on the ground state space is referred to as local topological quantum order. A key tool in our analysis is the quasi-local unitary spectral flow automorphism which allows us to decompose the perturbed Hamiltonian into a perturbation model satisfying a relative form bound. We will present a result for the stability of frustration-free, one-dimensional models of this type in the form of an estimate uniform in the system size. We also present additional conditions ensuring the existence of a pure perturbed ground state whose GNS Hamiltonian remains gapped. As an application, we evaluate the stability of the Heisenberg XXZ spin-1/2 chain. Our work shows a new result on the stability of the XXZ model for perturbations respecting a local gauge symmetry and the stability above the translation invariant ground states in the thermodynamic limit. We also discuss challenges to additional conjectured stability results for the XXZ model.