Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:1810.05805 · Annalen der Physik

Symmetry‐Protected Quantum Adiabatic Evolution in Spontaneous Symmetry‐Breaking Transitions

Min Zhuang, Jiahao Huang, Yongguan Ke, Chaohong Lee

Published Feb 24, 2020• 13 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract Quantum adiabatic evolution describes the dynamical evolution of a slowly driven Hamiltonian. In most systems undergoing spontaneous symmetry‐breaking transitions, the symmetry‐protected quantum adiabatic evolution can still appear, even when the two lowest eigenstates become degenerate. Here, a general derivation to revisit the symmetry‐dependent transition and the symmetry‐dependent adiabatic condition (SDAC) is given. Further, based on the SDAC, an adiabatic‐parameter‐fixed sweeping scheme is used for achieving fast adiabatic evolution, which is more efficient than the linear sweeping scheme. In the limit of small adiabatic parameter, an analytic inequality is obtained for the ground state fidelity only dependent on the adiabatic parameter. The general statements are then demonstrated via two typical systems. Besides, the robustness of the symmetry‐dependent adiabatic evolution against weak symmetry‐breaking sources is studied. The findings can be tested via the techniques in quantum annealing and may provide promising applications in practical quantum technologies.

DOI
10.1002/andp.201900471

Related papers

Quantum Adiabatic Evolution: Symmetry‐Protected Quantum Adiabatic Evolution in Spontaneous Symmetry‐Breaking Transitions (Ann. Phys. 4/2020)

Min Zhuang, Jiahao Huang, Yongguan Ke +1 more

Spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) is a fundamental concept in understanding continuous phase transitions. In article number 1900471, Chaohong Lee and co-workers study how to perform a simple and efficient adiabatic evolution in an SSB based on the instantaneous energy spectrum. Based on this adiabatic-parameter-fixed sweeping scheme, an inequality of the final fidelities is analytically obtained.

Annalen der Physik•Apr 1, 2020•2 citations

Hierarchical theory of quantum adiabatic evolution

Qi Zhang, Jiangbin Gong, Biao Wu

Quantum adiabatic evolution is a dynamical evolution of a quantum system under slow external driving. According to the quantum adiabatic theorem, no transitions occur between nondegenerate instantaneous energy eigenstates in such a dynamical evolution. However, this is true only when the driving rate is infinitesimally small. For a small nonzero driving rate, there are generally small transition probabilities between the energy eigenstates. We develop a classical mechanics framework to address the small deviations from the quantum adiabatic theorem order by order. A hierarchy of Hamiltonians is constructed iteratively with the zeroth-order Hamiltonian being determined by the original system Hamiltonian. The k th-order deviations are governed by a k th-order Hamiltonian, which depends on the time derivatives of the adiabatic parameters up to the k th-order. Two simple examples, the Landau–Zener model and a spin-1/2 particle in a rotating magnetic field, are used to illustrate our hierarchical theory. Our analysis also exposes a deep, previously unknown connection between classical adiabatic theory and quantum adiabatic theory.

arXiv:1402.6431•New Journal of Physics•Dec 10, 2014•6 citations

Defect formation preempts dynamical symmetry breaking in closed quantum systems

Carmine Ortix, Jorrit Rijnbeek, Jeroen van den Brink

The theory of spontaneous symmetry breaking---one of the cornerstones of modern condensed-matter physics---underlies the connection between a classically ordered object in the thermodynamic limit and its microscopic quantum-mechanical constituents. However, a large, but not infinitely large, system requires a finite symmetry-breaking perturbation to stabilize a symmetry-broken state over the exact quantum-mechanical ground state, respecting the symmetry. Here, we use the example of a particular antiferromagnetic model system to show that no matter how slowly such a symmetry-breaking perturbation is driven, the adiabatic limit can never be reached. Dynamically induced collective excitations---``quantum defects''---preempt the symmetry-breaking phenomenon and trigger the appearance of a symmetric nonequilibrium state that recursively collapses into the classical equilibrium state, breaking the symmetry at punctured times. The presence of this state allows ``quantum-classical'' transitions to be investigated and controlled in mesoscopic devices by externally supplying a proper dynamical symmetry-breaking perturbation.

arXiv:1103.3208•Physical Review B•Oct 21, 2011•3 citations

Quantum Information Scrambling in Adiabatically Driven Critical Systems

Ricardo Puebla, Fernando J. Gómez-Ruiz

Quantum information scrambling refers to the spread of the initially stored information over many degrees of freedom of a quantum many-body system. Information scrambling is intimately linked to the thermalization of isolated quantum many-body systems, and has been typically studied in a sudden quench scenario. Here, we extend the notion of quantum information scrambling to critical quantum many-body systems undergoing an adiabatic evolution. In particular, we analyze how the symmetry-breaking information of an initial state is scrambled in adiabatically driven integrable systems, such as the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick and quantum Rabi models. Following a time-dependent protocol that drives the system from symmetry-breaking to a normal phase, we show how the initial information is scrambled, even for perfect adiabatic evolutions, as indicated by the expectation value of a suitable observable. We detail the underlying mechanism for quantum information scrambling, its relation to ground- and excited-state quantum phase transitions, and quantify the degree of scrambling in terms of the number of eigenstates that participate in the encoding of the initial symmetry-breaking information. While the energy of the final state remains unaltered in an adiabatic protocol, the relative phases among eigenstates are scrambled, and so is the symmetry-breaking information. We show that a potential information retrieval, following a time-reversed protocol, is hindered by small perturbations, as indicated by a vanishingly small Loschmidt echo and out-of-time-ordered correlators. The reported phenomenon is amenable for its experimental verification, and may help in the understanding of information scrambling in critical quantum many-body systems.

arXiv:2408.02735•Entropy•Nov 5, 2024•1 citation

Evolution-Time Dependence in Near-Adiabatic Quantum Evolutions

Lucas T. Brady, Wim van Dam

We expand upon the standard quantum adiabatic theorem, examining the time-dependence of quantum evolution in the near-adiabatic limit. We examine a Hamiltonian that evolves along some fixed trajectory from $\hat{H}_0$ to $\hat{H}_1$ in a total evolution-time $τ$, and our goal is to determine how the final state of the system depends on $τ$. If the system is initialized in a non-degenerate ground state, the adiabatic theorem says that in the limit of large $τ$, the system will stay in the ground state. We examine the near-adiabatic limit where the system evolves slowly enough that most but not all of the final state is in the ground state, and we find that the probability of leaving the ground state oscillates in $τ$ with a frequency determined by the integral of the spectral gap along the trajectory of the Hamiltonian, so long as the gap is big. If the gap becomes exceedingly small, the final probability is the sum of oscillatory behavior determined by the integrals of the gap before and after the small gap. We confirm these analytic predictions with numerical evidence from barrier tunneling problems in the context of quantum adiabatic optimization.

arXiv:1801.04349•Jan 12, 2018•0 citations

Quantum Dissipative Paraelectricity

A. Cano

Whether a quantum system with a double-well effective potential undergoes spontaneous symmetry breaking depends not only on the potential landscape but also on the kinetics and the coupling with additional degrees of freedom. Here we introduce a quasi-exactly solvable model to study this problem in the context of ferroelectrics, with results that apply to a broad class of quantum phase transitions. Exploiting the analytical solutions, we provide a strict definition of the quantum paraelectric regime and identify a distinct quantum ferroelectric regime in which symmetry breaking can be realized without tunneling features. We then show that explicit symmetry breaking cannot be inferred from the order-parameter Hamiltonian alone, but requires additional couplings. This leads us to identify a regime of \emph{quantum dissipative paraelectricity}, in which observable symmetry breaking is suppressed during the evolution toward the ground state, even when the double-well structure dominates over zero-point quantum fluctuations.

cond-mat.mtrl-sciCross-listedarXiv:2608.20168•Aug 21, 2026•0 citations
Abstract Quantum adiabatic evolution describes the dynamical evolution of a slowly driven Hamiltonian. In most systems undergoing spontaneous symmetry‐breaking transitions, the symmetry‐protected quantum adiabatic evolution can still appear, even when the two lowest eigenstates become degenerate. Here, a general derivation to revisit the symmetry‐dependent transition and the symmetry‐dependent adiabatic condition (SDAC) is given. Further, based on the SDAC, an adiabatic‐parameter‐fixed sweeping scheme is used for achieving fast adiabatic evolution, which is more efficient than the linear sweeping scheme. In the limit of small adiabatic parameter, an analytic inequality is obtained for the ground state fidelity only dependent on the adiabatic parameter. The general statements are then demonstrated via two typical systems. Besides, the robustness of the symmetry‐dependent adiabatic evolution against weak symmetry‐breaking sources is studied. The findings can be tested via the techniques in quantum annealing and may provide promising applications in practical quantum technologies.
Quantum adiabatic evolution is a dynamical evolution of a quantum system under slow external driving. According to the quantum adiabatic theorem, no transitions occur between nondegenerate instantaneous energy eigenstates in such a dynamical evolution. However, this is true only when the driving rate is infinitesimally small. For a small nonzero driving rate, there are generally small transition probabilities between the energy eigenstates. We develop a classical mechanics framework to address the small deviations from the quantum adiabatic theorem order by order. A hierarchy of Hamiltonians is constructed iteratively with the zeroth-order Hamiltonian being determined by the original system Hamiltonian. The k th-order deviations are governed by a k th-order Hamiltonian, which depends on the time derivatives of the adiabatic parameters up to the k th-order. Two simple examples, the Landau–Zener model and a spin-1/2 particle in a rotating magnetic field, are used to illustrate our hierarchical theory. Our analysis also exposes a deep, previously unknown connection between classical adiabatic theory and quantum adiabatic theory.
The theory of spontaneous symmetry breaking---one of the cornerstones of modern condensed-matter physics---underlies the connection between a classically ordered object in the thermodynamic limit and its microscopic quantum-mechanical constituents. However, a large, but not infinitely large, system requires a finite symmetry-breaking perturbation to stabilize a symmetry-broken state over the exact quantum-mechanical ground state, respecting the symmetry. Here, we use the example of a particular antiferromagnetic model system to show that no matter how slowly such a symmetry-breaking perturbation is driven, the adiabatic limit can never be reached. Dynamically induced collective excitations---``quantum defects''---preempt the symmetry-breaking phenomenon and trigger the appearance of a symmetric nonequilibrium state that recursively collapses into the classical equilibrium state, breaking the symmetry at punctured times. The presence of this state allows ``quantum-classical'' transitions to be investigated and controlled in mesoscopic devices by externally supplying a proper dynamical symmetry-breaking perturbation.
Quantum information scrambling refers to the spread of the initially stored information over many degrees of freedom of a quantum many-body system. Information scrambling is intimately linked to the thermalization of isolated quantum many-body systems, and has been typically studied in a sudden quench scenario. Here, we extend the notion of quantum information scrambling to critical quantum many-body systems undergoing an adiabatic evolution. In particular, we analyze how the symmetry-breaking information of an initial state is scrambled in adiabatically driven integrable systems, such as the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick and quantum Rabi models. Following a time-dependent protocol that drives the system from symmetry-breaking to a normal phase, we show how the initial information is scrambled, even for perfect adiabatic evolutions, as indicated by the expectation value of a suitable observable. We detail the underlying mechanism for quantum information scrambling, its relation to ground- and excited-state quantum phase transitions, and quantify the degree of scrambling in terms of the number of eigenstates that participate in the encoding of the initial symmetry-breaking information. While the energy of the final state remains unaltered in an adiabatic protocol, the relative phases among eigenstates are scrambled, and so is the symmetry-breaking information. We show that a potential information retrieval, following a time-reversed protocol, is hindered by small perturbations, as indicated by a vanishingly small Loschmidt echo and out-of-time-ordered correlators. The reported phenomenon is amenable for its experimental verification, and may help in the understanding of information scrambling in critical quantum many-body systems.
We expand upon the standard quantum adiabatic theorem, examining the time-dependence of quantum evolution in the near-adiabatic limit. We examine a Hamiltonian that evolves along some fixed trajectory from H^0\hat{H}_0H^0​ to H^1\hat{H}_1H^1​ in a total evolution-time τττ, and our goal is to determine how the final state of the system depends on τττ. If the system is initialized in a non-degenerate ground state, the adiabatic theorem says that in the limit of large τττ, the system will stay in the ground state. We examine the near-adiabatic limit where the system evolves slowly enough that most but not all of the final state is in the ground state, and we find that the probability of leaving the ground state oscillates in τττ with a frequency determined by the integral of the spectral gap along the trajectory of the Hamiltonian, so long as the gap is big. If the gap becomes exceedingly small, the final probability is the sum of oscillatory behavior determined by the integrals of the gap before and after the small gap. We confirm these analytic predictions with numerical evidence from barrier tunneling problems in the context of quantum adiabatic optimization.
Whether a quantum system with a double-well effective potential undergoes spontaneous symmetry breaking depends not only on the potential landscape but also on the kinetics and the coupling with additional degrees of freedom. Here we introduce a quasi-exactly solvable model to study this problem in the context of ferroelectrics, with results that apply to a broad class of quantum phase transitions. Exploiting the analytical solutions, we provide a strict definition of the quantum paraelectric regime and identify a distinct quantum ferroelectric regime in which symmetry breaking can be realized without tunneling features. We then show that explicit symmetry breaking cannot be inferred from the order-parameter Hamiltonian alone, but requires additional couplings. This leads us to identify a regime of \emph{quantum dissipative paraelectricity}, in which observable symmetry breaking is suppressed during the evolution toward the ground state, even when the double-well structure dominates over zero-point quantum fluctuations.