The fidelity susceptibility measures the sensitivity of eigenstates to a change of an external parameter. It has been fruitfully used to pin down quantum phase transitions when applied to ground states (with extensions to thermal states). Here, we propose to use the fidelity susceptibility as a useful dimensionless measure for complex quantum systems. We find analytically the fidelity susceptibility distributions for Gaussian orthogonal and unitary universality classes for arbitrary system sizes. The results are verified by a comparison with numerical data.
The fidelity susceptibility measures the sensitivity of eigenstates to a change of an external parameter. It has been fruitfully used to pin down quantum phase transitions when applied to ground states (with extensions to thermal states). Here, we propose to use the fidelity susceptibility as a useful dimensionless measure for complex quantum systems. We find analytically the fidelity susceptibility distributions for Gaussian orthogonal and unitary universality classes for arbitrary system sizes. The results are verified by a comparison with numerical data.
The behavior of the ground-state fidelity susceptibility in the vicinity of a quantum critical point is investigated. We derive scaling relations describing its singular behavior in the quantum critical regime. Unlike in previous studies, these relations are solely expressed in terms of conventional critical exponents. We also describe in detail a quantum Monte Carlo scheme that allows for the evaluation of the fidelity susceptibility for a large class of many-body systems and apply it in the study of the quantum phase transition for the transverse-field Ising model on the square lattice. Finite-size analysis applied to the so-obtained numerical results confirms the validity of our scaling relations. Furthermore, we analyze the properties of a closely related quantity, the ground-state energy's second derivative, which can be numerically evaluated in a particularly efficient way. The usefulness of both quantities as alternative indicators of quantum criticality is examined.
In this dissertation, we address several problems in condensed matter physics, statistical mechanics, and quantum chaos from the perspective of the quantum information-theoretic notion of state distinguishability, as measured though evaluation of the appropriate fidelity measure. ❧ We find that the fidelity susceptibility, a measure for the response of the fidelity to infinitesimal changes of the Hamiltonian parameters, serves as a useful tool for studying the effects of disorder on quantum phase transitions. We study in detail the phase diagram of the well-known one-dimensional random quantum XY chain. Through an analysis of the fidelity susceptibility’s finite-size scaling and statistics for this model, we find that the fidelity approach reflects large variation between average and typical behavior, may detect the presence of Griffiths phases, and indicates the modifications to the phase diagram due to disorder. ❧ For this same model, though without disorder, we evaluate the dynamics following a sudden Hamiltonian quench using the Loschmidt echo, a form of the fidelity that compares the initial state with the time-evolved state. Through a central limit theorem-type argument we find that the long-time statistics of the Loschmidt echo takes one of two universal forms, even at finite temperature, depending on the system’s proximity to the quantum critical lines. ❧ Finally, for a canonical model exhibiting quantum chaos, the hydrogen atom in a uniform external magnetic field, we evaluate the operator fidelity susceptibility (OFS) between unitary operators generating the dynamics. We find that the part of the OFS which corresponds to the variation of the Hamiltonian eigenvectors serves to indicate the transition from the regular perturbative and n-mixing regimes to the quantum chaotic regime.
We study the quantum fidelity (ground-state overlap) near quantum phase transitions of the Ising universality class in one-dimensional (1D) systems of finite-size L. Prominent examples occur in magnetic systems (e.g., spin-Peierls, the anisotropic XY model) and in 1D topological insulators of any topologically nontrivial Altland-Zirnbauer-Kitaev universality class. The rescaled fidelity susceptibility is a function of the only dimensionless parameter LM, where 2M is the gap in the fermionic spectrum. We present analytic expressions for the fidelity susceptibility for periodic and open boundaries conditions with zero, one, or two edge states. The latter are shown to have a crucial impact and alter the susceptibility both quantitatively and qualitatively. We support our analytical solutions with numerical data.
The fidelity approach to the Gaussian transitions in spin-one XXZ spin chains with three different values of Ising-type anisotropy $\ensuremath{\lambda}$ is analyzed by means of the density matrix renormalization group technique for systems of large sizes. We find that, despite the success in the cases of $\ensuremath{\lambda}=2.59$ and 1, the fidelity susceptibility fails to detect the Gaussian transition for $\ensuremath{\lambda}=0.5$. Thus our results demonstrate the limitation of the fidelity susceptibility in characterizing quantum phase transitions, which was proposed recently in general frameworks.
We determine the distribution of fidelity susceptibility for chaotic eigenstates at the spectral edge of Gaussian random-matrix ensembles. Previous work showed that, in the unitary class, the characteristic susceptibility scale of edge states grows as D1/3, rather than proportionally to D as in the spectral bulk, reflecting Airy-edge level rigidity. Extending a determinant-based framework introduced for bulk states, we derive the universal edge distributions for both the orthogonal and unitary ensembles. The two symmetry classes share the scaling variable g/D1/3 and exhibit a symmetry-dependent cubic suppression of small susceptibilities, while their algebraic large-g tails reflect the corresponding symmetry-dependent level repulsion. Although eigenvector statistics retain their random-matrix form throughout the spectrum, edge rigidity makes low-lying chaotic states parametrically less sensitive to generic perturbations than bulk states. Our results establish universal, symmetry-dependent spectral-edge fidelity-susceptibility statistics in systems whose chaotic dynamics extends down to the ground state.
We study the response of an isolated quantum system governed by the Hamiltonian drawn from the Gaussian Rosenzweig-Porter random matrix ensemble to a perturbation controlled by a small parameter. We focus on the density of states, local density of states, and the eigenfunction amplitude overlap correlation functions which are calculated exactly using the mapping to the supersymmetric nonlinear sigma model. We show that the susceptibility of eigenfunction fidelity to the parameter of perturbation can be expressed in terms of these correlation functions and is strongly peaked at the localization transition: It is independent of the effective disorder strength in the ergodic phase, grows exponentially with increasing disorder in the fractal phase, and decreases exponentially in the localized phase. As a function of the matrix size, the fidelity susceptibility remains constant in the ergodic phase and increases in the fractal and in the localized phases at modestly strong disorder. We show that there is a critical disorder strength inside the insulating phase such that for disorder stronger than the critical, the fidelity susceptibility decreases with increasing the system size. The overall behavior is very similar to the one observed numerically in a recent work by Sels and Polkovnikov [Phys. Rev. E 104, 054105 (2021)] for the normalized fidelity susceptibility in a disordered XXZ spin chain.