We discuss a general bipartitelike representation and Schmidt decomposition of an arbitrary pure state of
N indistinguishable fermions, based on states of
M<N and $(N\ensuremath{-}M)$ fermions. It is directly connected with the reduced
M- and $(N\ensuremath{-}M)$-body density matrices (DMs), which have the same spectrum in such states. The concept of
M-body entanglement emerges naturally in this scenario, generalizing that of one-body entanglement. Rigorous majorization relations satisfied by the normalized
M-body DM are then derived, which imply that the associated entropy will not increase, on average, under a class of operations which have these DMs as postmeasurement states. Moreover, such entropy is an upper bound to the bipartite entanglement entropy generated by a class of operations which map the original state to a bipartite state of
M and $N\ensuremath{-}M$ effectively distinguishable fermions. Analytic evaluation of the spectrum of
M-body DMs in some strongly correlated fermionic states is also provided.
We analyze the problem of quantifying entanglement in pure and mixed states of fermionic systems with a fixed number parity yet not necessarily a fixed particle number. The mode entanglement between one single-particle level and its orthogonal complement is first considered, and an entanglement entropy for such a partition of a particular basis of the single-particle Hilbert space
H is defined. The sum over all single-particle modes of this entropy is introduced as a measure of the total entanglement of the system with respect to the chosen basis and it is shown that its minimum over all bases of
H is a function of the one-body density matrix. Furthermore, we show that if minimization is extended to all bases related through a Bogoliubov transformation, then the entanglement entropy is a function of the generalized one-body density matrix. These results are then used to quantify entanglement in fermion systems with four single-particle levels. For general pure states of such a system a closed expression for the fermionic concurrence is derived, which generalizes the Slater correlation measure defined by J. Schliemann et al. [Phys. Rev. A 64, 022303 (2001)], implying that particle entanglement may be seen as minimum mode entanglement. It is also shown that the entanglement entropy defined before is related to this concurrence by an expression analogous to that in the two-qubit case. For mixed states of this system the convex roof extension of the previous concurrence and entanglement entropy is evaluated analytically, extending the results in previous reference to general states.
Fermionic Hamiltonians play a critical role in quantum chemistry, one of the most promising use cases for near-term quantum computers. However, since encoding nonlocal fermionic statistics using conventional qubits results in significant computational overhead, fermionic quantum hardware, such as fermion atom arrays, were proposed as a more efficient platform. In this context, we here study the many-body entanglement structure of fermionic
N-particle states by concentrating on
M-body reduced density matrices (DMs) across various bipartitions in Fock space. The von Neumann entropy of the reduced DM is a basis independent entanglement measure which generalizes the traditional quantum chemistry concept of the one-particle DM entanglement, which characterizes how a single fermion is entangled with the rest. We carefully examine the upper bounds on the
M-body entanglement, which are analogous to the volume law of conventional entanglement measures. To this end, we establish a connection between
M-body reduced DM and the mathematical structure of hypergraphs. Specifically, we show that a special class of hypergraphs, known as
t-designs, corresponds to maximally entangled fermionic states. We also explore fermionic many-body entanglement in random states. We semianalytically demonstrate that the distribution of reduced DMs associated with random fermionic states corresponds to the trace-fixed Wishart-Laguerre random matrix ensemble. In the limit of large single-particle dimension
D and a non-zero filling fraction, random states asymptotically become absolutely maximally entangled. We also analyze many-body entanglement in interacting fermionic systems by using the
M-body DM. We demonstrate that if a particle number conserving fermionic Hamiltonian contains only up to
M-body interaction terms, then its
N-particle ground state cannot be maximally
M-body entangled. As a key step in the proof, we show that the energy expectation value of a maximally
M-body mixed state is equal to the spectral mean of the Hamiltonian on the corresponding
N-particle subspace. We further demonstrate that the many-body entanglement structure of a ground state can place quantitative constraint on the interaction strength of its parent Hamiltonian. We illustrate the theorem and its implications in Hubbard and extended SYK models. Going beyond ground states, we analyze entanglement generation under unitary dynamics from Slater-determinant initial states in these models. We determine early-time growth and estimate entanglement saturation times. Finally, we derive explicit symmetry-refined saturation upper bounds for
M-body entanglement in the presence of an Abelian symmetry.
We analyze many-body entanglement in interacting fermionic systems by using the
M-body reduced density matrix. We demonstrate that if a particle number conserving fermionic Hamiltonian contains only up to
M-body interaction terms, then its
N-particle ground state cannot be maximally
M-body entangled. As a key step in the proof, we show that the energy expectation value of a maximally
M-body mixed state is equal to the spectral mean of the Hamiltonian on the corresponding
N-particle subspace. We further demonstrate that the many-body entanglement structure of a ground state can place quantitative constraint on the interaction strength of its parent Hamiltonian. We illustrate the theorem and its implications in Hubbard and extended SYK models. Going beyond ground states, we analyze entanglement generation under unitary dynamics from Slater-determinant initial states in these models. We determine early-time growth and estimate entanglement saturation times. Finally, we derive explicit symmetry-refined saturation upper bounds for
M-body entanglement in the presence of an Abelian symmetry.
Orbital rotations are used in quantum many-body physics and chemistry to reduce the complexity of quantum states by compressing their correlation into a small set of relevant orbitals. In striking contrast, quantum information processing strives for the opposite: orbitals that maximize entanglement as a resource. Motivated by this, we prove that Slater determinants of
N fermions on a lattice of
dA+dB=d sites, although free of particle correlation, can carry up to
min{dA,dB,N,d−N} ebits of orbital entanglement. Given enough particles and holes, this equals the maximum over all fermionic states. For arbitrary free states, we derive the maximal orbital total correlation in closed form for all bipartitions, the finest partition, and all partitions of up to five sites, using new majorization relations for Hermitian matrices. Taken together, these results turn mean-field states, the starting point of most many-body methods in physics and chemistry, into a viable resource for quantum information processing.
We propose an entropic measure of nonclassical correlations in general mixed states of fermion systems, based on the loss of information due to the unread measurement of the occupancy of single-particle states of a given basis. When minimized over all possible single-particle bases, the measure reduces to an entanglement entropy for pure states and vanishes only for states which are diagonal in a Slater determinant basis. The approach is also suitable for states having definite number parity yet not necessarily a fixed particle number, in which case the minimization can be extended to all bases related through a Bogoliubov transformation if quasiparticle mode measurements are also considered. General stationary conditions for determining the optimizing basis are derived. For a mixture of a general pure state with the maximally mixed state, a general analytic evaluation of the present measure and optimizing basis is provided, which shows that nonentangled mixed states may nonetheless exhibit a nonzero information loss.