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arXiv:1807.09261 · APS March Meeting Abstracts

Many-body-localization transition in a universal quantum circuit model

Adrian Chapman, Akimasa Miyake

Published Jul 24, 2018• 0 citations
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Abstract

The dynamical generation of complex correlations in quantum many-body systems is of renewed interest in the context of quantum chaos, where the out-of-time-ordered (OTO) correlation function appears as a convenient measure of scrambling. To detect the the transition from scrambling to many-body localization, the latter of which has limited dynamical complexity and is often classically simulatable, we develop both exact and approximate methods to compute OTO correlators for arbitrary universal quantum circuits. We take advantage of the mapping of quantum circuits to the dynamics of interacting fermions in one dimension, as Gaussian time evolution supplemented by quartic interaction gates. In this framework, the OTO correlator can be calculated exactly as a superposition of exponentially many Gaussian-fermionic trajectories in the number of interaction gates. We develop a variationally-optimized, Gaussian approximation to the spatial propagation of an initially-local operator by restriction to the fastest-traveling fermionic modes, in a similar spirit as light-front computational methods in quantum field theory. We demonstrate that our method can detect the many-body localization transitions of generally time-dependent dynamics without the need for perturbatively weak interactions.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1807.09261

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The dynamical generation of complex correlations in quantum many-body systems is of renewed interest in the context of quantum chaos, where the out-of-time-ordered (OTO) correlation function appears as a convenient measure of scrambling. To detect the the transition from scrambling to many-body localization, the latter of which has limited dynamical complexity and is often classically simulatable, we develop both exact and approximate methods to compute OTO correlators for arbitrary universal quantum circuits. We take advantage of the mapping of quantum circuits to the dynamics of interacting fermions in one dimension, as Gaussian time evolution supplemented by quartic interaction gates. In this framework, the OTO correlator can be calculated exactly as a superposition of exponentially many Gaussian-fermionic trajectories in the number of interaction gates. We develop a variationally-optimized, Gaussian approximation to the spatial propagation of an initially-local operator by restriction to the fastest-traveling fermionic modes, in a similar spirit as light-front computational methods in quantum field theory. We demonstrate that our method can detect the many-body localization transitions of generally time-dependent dynamics without the need for perturbatively weak interactions.
The out-of-time-ordered (OTO) correlation is unconventional. It is a key quantity for quantifying quantum chaoticity and has been recently used in the investigation of quantum holography. On the other hand, it is difficult to reveal and understand the special features of many-body localization (MBL) by conventional quantities and methods. Here, the authors demonstrate that OTO correlation can provide a pertinent and comprehensive description for MBL. It readily reveals the special logarithmic dynamics of MBL, distinguishes MBL sharply from Anderson localization as well as ergodic states, and allows accurate extraction of localization lengths for MBL. The divergence of the localization length at a finite interaction predicts an ergodic-MBL transition. Furthermore, the infinite-time ``thermal'' fluctuation of the OTO correlation is zero (finite) in the ergodic (MBL) phase and thus can be considered as an order parameter for the ergodic-MBL transition, through which the transition can be identified and characterized. Specifically, the critical point and related critical exponents can be calculated.
Information scrambling and the butterfly effect in chaotic quantum systems can be diagnosed by out-of-time-ordered (OTO) commutators through an exponential growth and large late time value. We show that the latter feature shows up in a strongly correlated many-body system, a Luttinger liquid, whose density fluctuations we study at long and short wavelengths, both in equilibrium and after a quantum quench. We find rich behavior combining robustly universal and nonuniversal features. The OTO commutators display temperature- and initial-state-independent behavior and grow as t^{2} for short times. For the short-wavelength density operator, they reach a sizable value after the light cone only in an interacting Luttinger liquid, where the bare excitations break up into collective modes. This challenges the common interpretation of the OTO commutator in chaotic systems. We benchmark our findings numerically on an interacting spinless fermion model in 1D and find persistence of central features even in the nonintegrable case. As a nonuniversal feature, the short-time growth exhibits a distance-dependent power.
Thermalization of chaotic quantum many-body systems under unitary time evolution is related to the growth in complexity of initially simple Heisenberg operators.Operator growth is a manifestation of information scrambling and can be diagnosed by out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs).However, the behavior of OTOCs of local operators in generic chaotic local Hamiltonians remains poorly understood, with some semiclassical and large-N models exhibiting exponential growth of OTOCs and a sharp chaos wave front and other random circuit models showing a diffusively broadened wave front.In this paper, we propose a unified physical picture for scrambling in chaotic local Hamiltonians.We construct a random time-dependent Hamiltonian model featuring a large-N limit where the OTOC obeys a Fisher-Kolmogorov-Petrovsky-Piskunov (FKPP) type equation and exhibits exponential growth and a sharp wave front.We show that quantum fluctuations manifest as noise (distinct from the randomness of the couplings in the underlying Hamiltonian) in the FKPP equation and that the noise-averaged OTOC exhibits a crossover to a diffusively broadened wave front.At small N, we demonstrate that operator growth dynamics, averaged over the random couplings, can be efficiently simulated for all time using matrix product state techniques.To show that time-dependent randomness is not essential to our conclusions, we push our previous matrix product operator methods to very large size and show that data for a timeindependent Hamiltonian model are also consistent with a diffusively broadened wave front.
Out-of-time-ordered (OTO) correlators have developed into a central concept quantifying quantum information transport, information scrambling and quantum chaos. In this work we show that such OTO correlator can also be used to dynamically detect equilibrium as well as nonequilibrium phase transitions. We study OTO correlators of an order parameter around quantum critical points both in equilibrium and after a quantum quench by focusing on variants of transverse field Ising models, including the integrable one as well as non-integrable and long-range extensions. We find that the asymptotic long-time value of the OTO correlator signals the equilibrium critical points and ordered phases, and can serve as a putative order parameter for a dynamical quantum phase transition. This also implies that the late time value of the OTO commutator of the order parameter reaches a sizable value in the disordered phase even in the presence of well defined quasiparticles, in much the same way as is expected in chaotic systems. We discuss how our findings can be observed in current experiments of trapped ions or Rydberg atoms.
Out-of-time-ordered (OTO) correlators have developed into a central concept quantifying quantum information transport, information scrambling, and quantum chaos. In this Letter, we show that such an OTO correlator can also be used to dynamically detect equilibrium as well as nonequilibrium phase transitions in Ising chains. We study OTO correlators of an order parameter both in equilibrium and after a quantum quench for different variants of transverse-field Ising models in one dimension, including the integrable one as well as nonintegrable and long-range extensions. We find for all the studied models that the OTO correlator in ground states detects the quantum phase transition. After a quantum quench from a fully polarized state, we observe numerically for the short-range models that the asymptotic long-time value of the OTO correlator signals still the equilibrium critical points and ordered phases. For the long-range extension, the OTO correlator instead determines a dynamical quantum phase transition in the model. We discuss how our findings can be observed in current experiments of trapped ions or Rydberg atoms.
There has been recent progress in understanding chaotic features in many-body quantum systems. Motivated by the scrambling of information in black holes, it has been suggested that the time dependence of out-of-time-ordered (OTO) correlation functions such as $\ensuremath{\langle}{O}_{2}(t){O}_{1}(0){O}_{2}(t){O}_{1}(0)\ensuremath{\rangle}$ is a faithful measure of quantum chaos. Experimentally, these correlators are challenging to access since they apparently require access to both forward and backward time evolution with the system Hamiltonian. Here we propose a protocol to measure such OTO correlators using an ancilla that controls the direction of time. Specifically, by coupling the state of the ancilla to the system Hamiltonian of interest, we can emulate the forward and backward time propagation, where the ancilla plays the role of a quantum clock. Within this scheme, the continuous evolution of the entire system (the system of interest and the ancilla) is governed by a time-independent Hamiltonian. We discuss the implementation of our protocol with current circuit-QED technology for a class of interacting Hamiltonians. Our protocol is immune to errors that could occur when the direction of time evolution is externally controlled by a classical switch.