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arXiv:1204.0288 · Physical Review A

Ensembles of physical states and random quantum circuits on graphs

Alioscia Hamma, Siddhartha Santra, Paolo Zanardi A

Published Nov 26, 2012• 26 citations
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Abstract

In this paper we continue and extend the investigations of the ensembles of random physical states introduced in Hamma et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 040502 (2012)]. These ensembles are constructed by finite-length random quantum circuits (RQC) acting on the (hyper)edges of an underlying (hyper)graph structure. The latter encodes for the locality structure associated with finite-time quantum evolutions generated by physical, i.e., local, Hamiltonians. Our goal is to analyze physical properties of typical states in these ensembles; in particular here we focus on proxies of quantum entanglement as purity and $\ensuremath{\alpha}$-Renyi entropies. The problem is formulated in terms of matrix elements of superoperators which depend on the graph structure, choice of probability measure over the local unitaries, and circuit length. In the $\ensuremath{\alpha}=2$ case these superoperators act on a restricted multiqubit space generated by permutation operators associated to the subsets of vertices of the graph. For permutationally invariant interactions the dynamics can be further restricted to an exponentially smaller subspace. We consider different families of RQCs and study their typical entanglement properties for finite time as well as their asymptotic behavior. We find that area law holds in average and that the volume law is a typical property (that is, it holds in average and the fluctuations around the average are vanishing for the large system) of physical states. The area law arises when the evolution time is $O(1)$ with respect to the size $L$ of the system, while the volume law arises as is typical when the evolution time scales like $O(L)$.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.86.052324

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In this paper we continue and extend the investigations of the ensembles of random physical states introduced in Hamma et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 040502 (2012)]. These ensembles are constructed by finite-length random quantum circuits (RQC) acting on the (hyper)edges of an underlying (hyper)graph structure. The latter encodes for the locality structure associated with finite-time quantum evolutions generated by physical, i.e., local, Hamiltonians. Our goal is to analyze physical properties of typical states in these ensembles; in particular here we focus on proxies of quantum entanglement as purity and \ensuremathα\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremathα-Renyi entropies. The problem is formulated in terms of matrix elements of superoperators which depend on the graph structure, choice of probability measure over the local unitaries, and circuit length. In the \ensuremathα=2\ensuremath{\alpha}=2\ensuremathα=2 case these superoperators act on a restricted multiqubit space generated by permutation operators associated to the subsets of vertices of the graph. For permutationally invariant interactions the dynamics can be further restricted to an exponentially smaller subspace. We consider different families of RQCs and study their typical entanglement properties for finite time as well as their asymptotic behavior. We find that area law holds in average and that the volume law is a typical property (that is, it holds in average and the fluctuations around the average are vanishing for the large system) of physical states. The area law arises when the evolution time is O(1)O(1)O(1) with respect to the size LLL of the system, while the volume law arises as is typical when the evolution time scales like O(L)O(L)O(L).
Most states in the Hilbert space are maximally entangled. This fact has proven useful to investigate--among other things--the foundations of statistical mechanics. Unfortunately, most states in the Hilbert space of a quantum many-body system are not physically accessible. We define physical ensembles of states acting on random factorized states by a circuit of length k of random and independent unitaries with local support. We study the typicality of entanglement by means of the purity of the reduced state. We find that for a time k=O(1), the typical purity obeys the area law. Thus, the upper bounds for area law are actually saturated, on average, with a variance that goes to zero for large systems. Similarly, we prove that by means of local evolution a subsystem of linear dimensions L is typically entangled with a volume law when the time scales with the size of the subsystem. Moreover, we show that for large values of k the reduced state becomes very close to the completely mixed state.
The characterization of ensembles of many-qubit random states and their realization via quantum circuits are crucial tasks in quantum-information theory. In this work, we study the ensembles generated by quantum circuits that randomly permute the computational basis, thus acting classically on the corresponding states. We focus on the averaged entanglement and present two main results. First, we derive generically tight upper bounds on the entanglement that can be generated by applying permutation circuits to arbitrary initial states. We show that the late-time “entanglement Page curves” are bounded in terms of the initial state participation entropies and their overlap with the “maximally antilocalized” state. Generally speaking, this result states that the quantum correlations generated by classical circuits are bounded in terms of some quantum property of the initial state (namely, the degree to which it can be written as a superposition of classical states). Second, comparing the averaged Rényi-2 entropies generated by ( 1 ) an infinitely deep random circuit of two-qubit gates and ( 2 ) global random permutations, we show that the two quantities are different for finite N but the corresponding Page curves coincide in the thermodynamic limit. We also discuss how these conclusions are modified by additional random phases or considering circuits of k -local gates with k ≥ 3 . Our results are exact and highlight the implications of classical features on entanglement generation in many-body systems.
Random pure states of multi-partite quantum systems, associated with arbitrary graphs, are investigated. Each vertex of the graph represents a generic interaction between subsystems, described by a random unitary matrix distributed according to the Haar measure, while each edge of the graph represents a bipartite, maximally entangled state. For any splitting of the graph into two parts we consider the corresponding partition of the quantum system and compute the average entropy of entanglement. First, in the special case where the partition does not cross any vertex of the graph, we show that the area law is satisfied exactly. In the general case, we show that the entropy of entanglement obeys an area law on average, this time with a correction term that depends on the topologies of the graph and of the partition. The results obtained are applied to the problem of distribution of quantum entanglement in a quantum network with prescribed topology.
We define different classes of local random quantum circuits (L-RQC) and show that (a) statistical properties of L-RQC are encoded into an associated family of completely positive maps and (b) average purity dynamics can be described by the action of these maps on operator algebras of permutations (swap algebras). An exactly solvable one-dimensional case is analyzed to illustrate the power of the swap algebra formalism. More in general, we prove short time area-law bounds on average purity for uncorrelated L-RQC and infinite time results for both the uncorrelated and correlated cases.
A standard approach to generate random pure quantum states relies on sampling from the Haar measure. However, the entanglement properties of such states present a fundamental challenge for their general applicability. Here, we introduce the σσσ-ensembles $\unicode{x2013}$ a family of random quantum states with only a single control parameter. Crucially, these states are designed such that they can be tuned between volume-law and area-law behavior, which has been a major obstacle thus far. We construct representatives of this ensemble by imposing a probability distribution on the eigenvalues of the successive subsystems, and subsequently reconstructing a compatible global state using the matrix product state (MPS) formalism. Due to their area-law entanglement, our approach circumvents the intractability of Haar-random pure states in classical simulations of quantum systems and is more representative of typical Hamiltonian ground states.
For any graph consisting of k vertices and m edges we construct an ensemble of random pure quantum states which describe a system composed of 2 m subsystems. Each edge of the graph represents a bipartite, maximally entangled state. Each vertex represents a random unitary matrix generated according to the Haar measure, which describes the coupling between subsystems. Dividing all subsystems into two parts, one may study entanglement with respect to this partition. A general technique to derive an expression for the average entanglement entropy of random pure states associated with a given graph is presented. Our technique relies on Weingarten calculus and flow problems. We analyze the statistical properties of spectra of such random density matrices and show for which cases they are described by the free Poissonian (Marchenko–Pastur) distribution. We derive a discrete family of generalized, Fuss–Catalan distributions and explicitly construct graphs which lead to ensembles of random states characterized by these novel distributions of eigenvalues.