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arXiv:1509.00314 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Quantum phase transitions detected by a local probe using time correlations and violations of Leggett-Garg inequalities

Fernando J. Gómez-Ruiz, Juan José Mendoza-Arenas, Ferney J. Rodríguez, C. Tejedor, Luis Quiroga

Published Jan 22, 2016• 21 citations
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Abstract

In the present paper we introduce a way of identifying quantum phase transitions of many-body systems by means of local time correlations and Leggett-Garg inequalities. This procedure allows us to experimentally determine the quantum critical points not only of finite-order transitions but also those of infinite order, as the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition that is not always easy to detect with current methods. By means of simple analytical arguments for a general spin-$1/2$ Hamiltonian, and matrix product simulations of one-dimensional $XXZ$ and anisotropic $XY$ models, we argue that finite-order quantum phase transitions can be determined by singularities of the time correlations or their derivatives at criticality. The same features are exhibited by corresponding Leggett-Garg functions, which noticeably indicate violation of the Leggett-Garg inequalities for early times and all the Hamiltonian parameters considered. In addition, we find that the infinite-order transition of the $XXZ$ model at the isotropic point can be revealed by the maximal violation of the Leggett-Garg inequalities. We thus show that quantum phase transitions can be identified by purely local measurements and that many-body systems constitute important candidates to observe experimentally the violation of Leggett-Garg inequalities.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.93.035441

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In the present paper we introduce a way of identifying quantum phase transitions of many-body systems by means of local time correlations and Leggett-Garg inequalities. This procedure allows us to experimentally determine the quantum critical points not only of finite-order transitions but also those of infinite order, as the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition that is not always easy to detect with current methods. By means of simple analytical arguments for a general spin-1/21/21/2 Hamiltonian, and matrix product simulations of one-dimensional XXZXXZXXZ and anisotropic XYXYXY models, we argue that finite-order quantum phase transitions can be determined by singularities of the time correlations or their derivatives at criticality. The same features are exhibited by corresponding Leggett-Garg functions, which noticeably indicate violation of the Leggett-Garg inequalities for early times and all the Hamiltonian parameters considered. In addition, we find that the infinite-order transition of the XXZXXZXXZ model at the isotropic point can be revealed by the maximal violation of the Leggett-Garg inequalities. We thus show that quantum phase transitions can be identified by purely local measurements and that many-body systems constitute important candidates to observe experimentally the violation of Leggett-Garg inequalities.
In the present work we propose that two-time correlations of Majorana edge localized fermions constitute a novel and versatile toolbox for assessing the topological phases of one-dimensional open lattices. Using analytical and numerical calculations in the Kitaev model, we uncover universal relationships between the decay of the short-time correlations and a particular family of out-of-time-ordered correlators, which provide direct experimental alternatives to the quantitative analysis of the system regime, either normal or topological. Furthermore, we show that the saturation of two-time correlations possesses features of an order parameter. Finally, we find that violations of Leggett-Garg inequalities can indicate the topological-normal phase transition by looking at different qubits formed by pairing local and nonlocal edge Majorana fermions.
Entanglement and violation of Bell inequalities are aspects of quantum nonlocality that have been often confused in the past. It is now known that this equivalence is only true for pure states. Even though almost all the studies of quantum correlations at quantum phase transitions deal only with entanglement, we here argue that Bell inequalities can also reveal a general quantum phase transition. This is also shown for a particular case of two spin-12\frac{1}{2}21​ particles in an infinite one-dimensional chain described by the XXZ model. In this case, the Bell inequality is able to signal not only the first-order phase transition, but also the infinite-order Kosterlitz-Thouless quantum phase transition, which cannot be revealed either by the energy of the system nor by the bipartite entanglement. We also show that although the nearest-neighbor spins are entangled, they, unexpectedly, never violate the Bell inequality. This indicates that the type of entanglement which is relevant for quantum phase transition is not trivial, i.e., it cannot be revealed by the Bell inequality.
The aim of this work is to develop a technique for identifying quantum phase transitions which does not rely on the existence of a thermodynamic limit, for studies in finite systems. The approach we adopt exploits an exact mapping of the spectrum of a many-body integrable system, which admits an exact Bethe ansatz solution, into the quasi-exactly solvable spectrum of a one-particle Schrodinger operator. Bifurcations of the minima for the potential of the Schrodinger operator determine critical ground-state couplings. By considering the behaviour of certain ground-state correlation functions, these may be identified as quantum phase transitions in the many-body integrable system with finite particle number. We study two particular examples of bosonic Hamiltonians which admit second-order transitions, and discuss further applications.
In the tests for macrorealism proposed by Leggett and Garg, the temporal correlation functions of a dichotomic variable QQQ must be measured in a noninvasive way to rule out alternative classical explanations of Leggett-Garg inequality violations. Ideal negative measurements in which a null result is argued to be a noninvasive determination of the system's state are often used. From a quantum-mechanical perspective, such a measurement collapses the wave function and will therefore typically be found to be invasive under any experimental check. Here, a simple modified ideal negative measurement protocol is described for measuring the correlation functions, which is argued to be noninvasive from both classical and quantum perspectives and hence the noninvasiveness can then be checked experimentally, thereby permitting a quantitative measure of the degree of clumsiness of the measurement. It is also shown how this procedure may be extended to measure higher-order correlation functions, and a number of higher-order conditions for macrorealism are derived.
We face the problem of detecting and featuring footprints of quantum criticality in the finite-temperature behavior of quantum many-body systems. Our strategy is that of comparing the phase diagram of a system displaying a T=0T=0T=0 quantum phase transition with that of its classical limit, in order to single out the genuinely quantum effects. To this aim, we consider the one-dimensional Ising model in a transverse field: while the quantum S=1∕2S=1∕2S=1∕2 Ising chain is exactly solvable and extensively studied, results for the classical limit $(S\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty})$ of such model are lacking, and we supply them here. They are obtained numerically, via the transfer-matrix method, and their asymptotic low-temperature behavior is also derived analytically by self-consistent spin-wave theory. We draw the classical phase diagram according to the same procedure followed in the quantum analysis, and the two phase diagrams are found unexpectedly similar: Three regimes are detected also in the classical case, each characterized by a functional dependence of the correlation length on temperature and field analogous to that of the quantum model. What discriminates the classical from the quantum case are the different values of the exponents entering such dependencies, a consequence of the different nature of zero-temperature quantum fluctuations with respect to the thermal ones.
We formulate a spatial extension of the Leggett-Garg inequality by considering three distant observers locally measuring a many-body system at three subsequent times. The spatial form is especially suitable to test the ability of quantum devices to generate spatio-temporal correlations in a Hamiltonian-agnostic manner. We illustrate our proposal for a Heisenberg chain in a magnetic field, showing indeed that the first inequality-violation time scales proportionally to the distance between measuring parties. We attribute this phenomenon to Lieb-Robinson physics and, confirming this connection, we find that violations are anticipated when increasing the interaction range. The inequality violation is readily observable in current quantum simulation platforms, particularly Rydberg atoms arrays and ultracold atoms in optical lattices. In outlook, spatial Leggett-Garg inequalities constitute a practical tool for benchmarking the complex non-relativistic dynamics of many-body quantum systems.