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arXiv:2008.05559 · PRX Quantum

Information Scrambling versus Decoherence—Two Competing Sinks for Entropy

Akram Touil, Sebastian Deffner

Published Jan 13, 2021• 57 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A possible solution of the information paradox can be sought in quantum information scrambling.In this paradigm, it is postulated that all information entering a black hole is rapidly and chaotically distributed across the event horizon, making it impossible to reconstruct the information by means of any local measurement.However, in this scenario, the effects of decoherence are typically ignored, which may render information scrambling moot in cosmological settings.In this work, we develop key steps toward a thermodynamic description of information scrambling in open quantum systems.In particular, we separate the entropy change into contributions arising from scrambling and decoherence, for which we derive statements of the second law.This is complemented with a numerical study of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev, Maldacena-Qi, XXX, mixed-field Ising, and Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick models in the presence of decoherence in the energy or in the computational basis.

DOI
10.1103/prxquantum.2.010306

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A possible solution of the information paradox can be sought in quantum information scrambling.In this paradigm, it is postulated that all information entering a black hole is rapidly and chaotically distributed across the event horizon, making it impossible to reconstruct the information by means of any local measurement.However, in this scenario, the effects of decoherence are typically ignored, which may render information scrambling moot in cosmological settings.In this work, we develop key steps toward a thermodynamic description of information scrambling in open quantum systems.In particular, we separate the entropy change into contributions arising from scrambling and decoherence, for which we derive statements of the second law.This is complemented with a numerical study of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev, Maldacena-Qi, XXX, mixed-field Ising, and Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick models in the presence of decoherence in the energy or in the computational basis.
A possible solution of the information paradox can be sought in quantum information scrambling. In this paradigm, it is postulated that all information entering a black hole is rapidly and chaotically distributed across the event horizon, making it impossible to reconstruct the information by means of any local measurement. However, in this scenario, the effects of decoherence are typically ignored, which may render information scrambling moot in cosmological settings. In this work, we develop key steps toward a thermodynamic description of information scrambling in open quantum systems. In particular, we separate the entropy change into contributions arising from scrambling and decoherence, for which we derive statements of the second law. This is complemented with a numerical study of the SachdevYe-Kitaev, Maldacena-Qi, XXX, mixed-field Ising, and Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick models in the presence of decoherence in the energy or in the computational basis.
Abstract Quantum information scrambling refers to the loss of local recoverability of quantum information, which has found widespread attention from high energy physics to quantum computing. In the present analysis we propose a possible starting point for the development of a comprehensive framework for the thermodynamics of scrambling. To this end, we prove that the growth of entanglement as quantified by the mutual information is lower bounded by the time-dependent change of out-of-time-ordered correlator. We further show that the rate of increase of the mutual information can be upper bounded by the sum of local entropy productions, and the exchange entropy arising from the flow of information between separate partitions of a quantum system. Our results are illustrated for the ion trap system, that was recently used to verify information scrambling in an experiment, and for the Sachdev–Ye–Kitaev model.
The black hole information paradox has been hotly debated for the last few decades without a full resolution. This makes it desirable to find analogues of this paradox in simple and experimentally accessible systems, whose resolutions may shed light on this longstanding and fundamental problem. Here, we review and resolve the apparent "information paradox" in two different interfaces separating Abelian and non-Abelian quantum Hall states. In both cases, the information carried by the pseudospin degree of freedom of the Abelian anyons get scrambled when they cross the interface and enter the non-Abelian quantum Hall liquid. Nevertheless, it is found that the scrambling mechanism depends on the nature of the interface. The corresponding analogues of different concepts in black hole physics such as event horizon, black hole interior, Hawking radiation, and Page curve will also be discussed.
Abstract Recent advances in quantum information science have shed light on the intricate dynamics of quantum many-body systems, for which quantum information scrambling is a perfect example. Motivated by considerations of the thermodynamics of quantum information, this perspective aims at synthesizing key findings from several pivotal studies and exploring various aspects of quantum scrambling. We consider quantifiers such as the out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC) and the quantum mutual information, their connections to thermodynamics, and their role in understanding chaotic vs . integrable quantum systems. With a focus on representative examples, we cover a range of topics, including the thermodynamics of quantum information scrambling, and the scrambling dynamics in quantum gravity models such as the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. Examining these diverse approaches enables us to highlight the multifaceted nature of quantum information scrambling and its significance in understanding the fundamental aspects of quantum many-body dynamics at the intersection of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics.
The delocalization or scrambling of quantum information has emerged as a central ingredient in the understanding of thermalization in isolated quantum many-body systems. Recently, significant progress has been made analytically by modeling non-integrable systems as periodically driven systems, lacking a Hamiltonian picture, while honest Hamiltonian dynamics are frequently limited to small system sizes due to computational constraints. In this paper, we address this by investigating the role of conservation laws (including energy conservation) in the thermalization process from an information-theoretic perspective. For general non-integrable models, we use the equilibrium approximation to show that the maximal amount of information is scrambled (as measured by the tripartite mutual information of the time-evolution operator) at late times even when a system conserves energy. In contrast, we explicate how when a system has additional symmetries that lead to degeneracies in the spectrum, the amount of information scrambled must decrease. This general theory is exemplified in case studies of holographic conformal field theories (CFTs) and the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. Due to the large Virasoro symmetry in 1+1D CFTs, we argue that, in a sense, these holographic theories are not maximally chaotic, which is explicitly seen by the non-saturation of the second Rényi tripartite mutual information. The roles of particle-hole and U(1) symmetries in the SYK model are milder due to the degeneracies being only two-fold, which we confirm explicitly at both large- and small-N. We reinterpret the operator entanglement in terms of the growth of local operators, connecting our results with the information scrambling described by out-of-time-ordered correlators, identifying the mechanism for suppressed scrambling from the Heisenberg perspective.
We systematically investigate scrambling (or delocalizing) processes of quantum information encoded in quantum many-body systems by using numerical exact diagonalization. As a measure of scrambling, we adopt the tripartite mutual information (TMI) that becomes negative when quantum information is delocalized. We clarify that scrambling is an independent property of the integrability of Hamiltonians; TMI can be negative or positive for both integrable and nonintegrable systems. This implies that scrambling is a separate concept from conventional quantum chaos characterized by nonintegrability. Specifically, we argue that there are a few exceptional initial states that do not exhibit scrambling, and show that such exceptional initial states have small effective dimensions. Furthermore, we calculate TMI in the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model, a fermionic toy model of quantum gravity. We find that disorder does not make scrambling slower but makes it smoother in the SYK model, in contrast to many-body localization in spin chains.