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:1811.11974 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Exact rainbow tensor networks for the colorful Motzkin and Fredkin spin chains

Rafael N. Alexander, Amr A. Ahmadain, Zhao Zhang, Israel Klich

Published Dec 24, 2019• 27 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We present bulk tensor networks that exactly represent the ground states of a continuous family of one-dimensional frustration-free Hamiltonians. These states, which are known as area-deformed Motzkin and Fredkin states, exhibit a novel quantum phase transition. By tuning a single parameter, they go from a phase obeying an area law to a highly entangled ``rainbow'' phase, where the half-chain entropy scales with the volume. Using the representation of these ground states as superpositions of random walks, we introduce tensor networks for these ground states where local and global rules of the walker are baked into bulk tensors, thereby providing an efficient description of the ground states (some of which satisfy a volume law scaling of entanglement entropy).

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.100.214430

Related papers

Deformed Fredkin spin chain with extensive entanglement

Olof Salberger, Takuma Udagawa, Zhao Zhang +3 more

Abstract We introduce a new spin chain which is a deformation of the Fredkin spin chain and has a phase transition between bounded and extensive entanglement entropy scaling. In this chain, spins have a local interaction of three nearest neighbors. The Hamiltonian is frustration-free and its ground state can be described analytically as a weighted superposition of Dyck paths that depends on a deformation parameter t . In the purely spin 1/2 case, whenever t ≠ 1 , the entanglement entropy obeys an area law: it is bounded from above by a constant, when the size of the block n increases. When a local color degree of freedom is introduced and t > 1 the entanglement entropy increases linearly, while for t < 1 an area law is obeyed. The half-chain entanglement entropy is tightly bounded by n log ⁡ s where 2 n is the length of the chain, and s is the number of colors. Our chain fosters a new example for a significant boost to entropy and for the existence of the associated critical rainbow phase where the entanglement entropy scales with volume that discovered by Zhang, Ahmadain and Klich ( Proc. Natl Acad. Sci 2017).

arXiv:1611.04983•Journal of Statistical Mechanics Theory and Experiment•Jun 1, 2017•59 citations

Highly entangled 2D ground states: Tensor network, order parameter and correlation

Olai B. Mykland, Zhao Zhang

We present analytical results on the exact tensor network representations and correlation functions of the first examples of 2D ground states with quantum phase transitions between area law and extensive entanglement entropy. The tensor networks constructed are one dimension higher than the lattices of the physical systems, allowing entangled physical degrees of freedoms to be paired with one another arbitrarily far away. Contraction rules of the internal legs are specified by a simple translationally invariant set of rules in terms of the tesselation of cubes or prisms in 3D space. The networks directly generalize the previous holographic tensor networks for 1D Fredkin and Motzkin chains. We also analyze the correlation in the spin and color sectors from the scaling of the height function of random surfaces, revealing additional characterizations of the exotic phase transitions.

arXiv:2502.20192•SciPost Physics•May 4, 2026•1 citation

Coupled Fredkin and Motzkin chains from quantum six- and nineteen-vertex models

Zhao Zhang, Israel Klich

We generalize the area-law violating models of Fredkin and Motzkin spin chains into two dimensions by building quantum six- and nineteen-vertex models with correlated interactions. The Hamiltonian is frustration free, and its projectors generate ergodic dynamics within the subspace of height configuration that are non negative. The ground state is a volume- and color-weighted superposition of classical bi-color vertex configurations with non-negative heights in the bulk and zero height on the boundary. The entanglement entropy between subsystems has a phase transition as the $q$-deformation parameter is tuned, which is shown to be robust in the presence of an external field acting on the color degree of freedom. The ground state undergoes a quantum phase transition between area- and volume-law entanglement phases with a critical point where entanglement entropy scales as a function $L\log L$ of the linear system size $L$. Intermediate power law scalings between $L\log L$ and $L^2$ can be achieved with an inhomogeneous deformation parameter that approaches 1 at different rates in the thermodynamic limit. For the $q>1$ phase, we construct a variational wave function that establishes an upper bound on the spectral gap that scales as $q^{-L^3/8}$.

arXiv:2210.03038•Oct 6, 2022•1 citation

Exact Neural-Network Representations of the Motzkin States

Runde Zha, Yuntian Gu, Chaohui Fan +3 more

Motzkin spin chains are paradigmatic frustration-free one-dimensional quantum systems whose ground states feature exactly solvable combinatorial structures and exotic, area-law-violating entanglement scaling. Specifically, colorless Motzkin states exhibit critical logarithmic entanglement divergence \(\log N\) with system size \(N\), while their colorful counterparts host supercritical sublinear \(\sqrt{N}\) entanglement growth. Such unconventional entanglement behaviors place these states well beyond the expressive capability of standard matrix product states, which are fundamentally constrained by the entanglement area law. Here, we systematically construct exact, training-free neural-network representations for both colorless and colorful Motzkin states across four mainstream architectures, including recurrent, feedforward, convolutional, and transformer networks. Our core design leverages a causal prefix-sum module, implementable via recurrent updates, feedforward mappings, or masked attention layers, combined with position-selective rectified linear gates that enforce the Motzkin height constraints. For the colorful states, we further introduce a dedicated causal stack module that explicitly encodes the last-in-first-out color-matching rule. Our results demonstrate that neural architectures can accurately capture highly non-trivial entanglement features inaccessible to conventional tensor networks, providing prototypic examples for benchmarking and a constructive design framework for future neural-network quantum state developments targeting strongly entangled quantum systems.

cond-mat.str-elCross-listedarXiv:2607.22522•Jul 27, 2026•0 citations

Coupled Fredkin and Motzkin chains from quantum six- and nineteen-vertex models

Zhao Zhang, Israel Klich

We generalize the area-law violating models of Fredkin and Motzkin spin chains into two dimensions by building quantum six- and nineteen-vertex models with correlated interactions. The Hamiltonian is frustration free, and its projectors generate ergodic dynamics within the subspace of height configuration that are non negative. The ground state is a volume- and color-weighted superposition of classical bi-color vertex configurations with non-negative heights in the bulk and zero height on the boundary. The entanglement entropy between subsystems has a phase transition as the q q -deformation parameter is tuned, which is shown to be robust in the presence of an external field acting on the color degree of freedom. The ground state undergoes a quantum phase transition between area- and volume-law entanglement phases with a critical point where entanglement entropy scales as a function L\log L L log L of the linear system size L L . Intermediate power law scalings between L\log L L log L and L^2 L 2 can be achieved with an inhomogeneous deformation parameter that approaches 1 at different rates in the thermodynamic limit. For the q>1 q > 1 phase, we construct a variational wave function that establishes an upper bound on the spectral gap that scales as q^{-L^3/8} q − L 3 / 8 .

SciPost Physics•Aug 2, 2023•9 citations

Quantum phase transition from bounded to extensive entanglement entropy in a frustration-free spin chain

Zhao Zhang, Amr A. Ahmadain, Israel Klich

We introduce a continuous family of frustration-free Hamiltonians with exactly solvable ground states. We prove that the {ground state of our model is non-degenerate and exhibits} a novel quantum phase transition from bounded entanglement entropy to a massively entangled state with volume entropy scaling. The ground state may be interpreted as a deformation away from the uniform superposition of colored Motzkin paths, showed by Movassagh and Shor to have a large (square-root) but sub-extensive scaling of entanglement into a state with an extensive entropy.

arXiv:1606.07795•Jun 24, 2016•6 citations
We present bulk tensor networks that exactly represent the ground states of a continuous family of one-dimensional frustration-free Hamiltonians. These states, which are known as area-deformed Motzkin and Fredkin states, exhibit a novel quantum phase transition. By tuning a single parameter, they go from a phase obeying an area law to a highly entangled ``rainbow'' phase, where the half-chain entropy scales with the volume. Using the representation of these ground states as superpositions of random walks, we introduce tensor networks for these ground states where local and global rules of the walker are baked into bulk tensors, thereby providing an efficient description of the ground states (some of which satisfy a volume law scaling of entanglement entropy).
Abstract We introduce a new spin chain which is a deformation of the Fredkin spin chain and has a phase transition between bounded and extensive entanglement entropy scaling. In this chain, spins have a local interaction of three nearest neighbors. The Hamiltonian is frustration-free and its ground state can be described analytically as a weighted superposition of Dyck paths that depends on a deformation parameter t . In the purely spin 1/2 case, whenever t ≠ 1 , the entanglement entropy obeys an area law: it is bounded from above by a constant, when the size of the block n increases. When a local color degree of freedom is introduced and t > 1 the entanglement entropy increases linearly, while for t < 1 an area law is obeyed. The half-chain entanglement entropy is tightly bounded by n log ⁡ s where 2 n is the length of the chain, and s is the number of colors. Our chain fosters a new example for a significant boost to entropy and for the existence of the associated critical rainbow phase where the entanglement entropy scales with volume that discovered by Zhang, Ahmadain and Klich ( Proc. Natl Acad. Sci 2017).
We present analytical results on the exact tensor network representations and correlation functions of the first examples of 2D ground states with quantum phase transitions between area law and extensive entanglement entropy. The tensor networks constructed are one dimension higher than the lattices of the physical systems, allowing entangled physical degrees of freedoms to be paired with one another arbitrarily far away. Contraction rules of the internal legs are specified by a simple translationally invariant set of rules in terms of the tesselation of cubes or prisms in 3D space. The networks directly generalize the previous holographic tensor networks for 1D Fredkin and Motzkin chains. We also analyze the correlation in the spin and color sectors from the scaling of the height function of random surfaces, revealing additional characterizations of the exotic phase transitions.
We generalize the area-law violating models of Fredkin and Motzkin spin chains into two dimensions by building quantum six- and nineteen-vertex models with correlated interactions. The Hamiltonian is frustration free, and its projectors generate ergodic dynamics within the subspace of height configuration that are non negative. The ground state is a volume- and color-weighted superposition of classical bi-color vertex configurations with non-negative heights in the bulk and zero height on the boundary. The entanglement entropy between subsystems has a phase transition as the qqq-deformation parameter is tuned, which is shown to be robust in the presence of an external field acting on the color degree of freedom. The ground state undergoes a quantum phase transition between area- and volume-law entanglement phases with a critical point where entanglement entropy scales as a function Llog⁡LL\log LLlogL of the linear system size LLL. Intermediate power law scalings between Llog⁡LL\log LLlogL and L2L^2L2 can be achieved with an inhomogeneous deformation parameter that approaches 1 at different rates in the thermodynamic limit. For the q>1q>1q>1 phase, we construct a variational wave function that establishes an upper bound on the spectral gap that scales as q−L3/8q^{-L^3/8}q−L3/8.
Motzkin spin chains are paradigmatic frustration-free one-dimensional quantum systems whose ground states feature exactly solvable combinatorial structures and exotic, area-law-violating entanglement scaling. Specifically, colorless Motzkin states exhibit critical logarithmic entanglement divergence log⁡N\log NlogN with system size NNN, while their colorful counterparts host supercritical sublinear N\sqrt{N}N​ entanglement growth. Such unconventional entanglement behaviors place these states well beyond the expressive capability of standard matrix product states, which are fundamentally constrained by the entanglement area law. Here, we systematically construct exact, training-free neural-network representations for both colorless and colorful Motzkin states across four mainstream architectures, including recurrent, feedforward, convolutional, and transformer networks. Our core design leverages a causal prefix-sum module, implementable via recurrent updates, feedforward mappings, or masked attention layers, combined with position-selective rectified linear gates that enforce the Motzkin height constraints. For the colorful states, we further introduce a dedicated causal stack module that explicitly encodes the last-in-first-out color-matching rule. Our results demonstrate that neural architectures can accurately capture highly non-trivial entanglement features inaccessible to conventional tensor networks, providing prototypic examples for benchmarking and a constructive design framework for future neural-network quantum state developments targeting strongly entangled quantum systems.
We generalize the area-law violating models of Fredkin and Motzkin spin chains into two dimensions by building quantum six- and nineteen-vertex models with correlated interactions. The Hamiltonian is frustration free, and its projectors generate ergodic dynamics within the subspace of height configuration that are non negative. The ground state is a volume- and color-weighted superposition of classical bi-color vertex configurations with non-negative heights in the bulk and zero height on the boundary. The entanglement entropy between subsystems has a phase transition as the q q -deformation parameter is tuned, which is shown to be robust in the presence of an external field acting on the color degree of freedom. The ground state undergoes a quantum phase transition between area- and volume-law entanglement phases with a critical point where entanglement entropy scales as a function L\log L L log L of the linear system size L L . Intermediate power law scalings between L\log L L log L and L^2 L 2 can be achieved with an inhomogeneous deformation parameter that approaches 1 at different rates in the thermodynamic limit. For the q>1 q > 1 phase, we construct a variational wave function that establishes an upper bound on the spectral gap that scales as q^{-L^3/8} q − L 3 / 8 .
We introduce a continuous family of frustration-free Hamiltonians with exactly solvable ground states. We prove that the {ground state of our model is non-degenerate and exhibits} a novel quantum phase transition from bounded entanglement entropy to a massively entangled state with volume entropy scaling. The ground state may be interpreted as a deformation away from the uniform superposition of colored Motzkin paths, showed by Movassagh and Shor to have a large (square-root) but sub-extensive scaling of entanglement into a state with an extensive entropy.