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arXiv:2012.14609 · SciPost Physics Core

Local operator entanglement in spin chains

Eric Mascot, Masahiro Nozaki A, Masaki Tezuka

Published Oct 20, 2023• 11 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Understanding how and whether local perturbations can affect the entire quantum system is a fundamental step in understanding non-equilibrium phenomena such as thermalization. This knowledge of non-equilibrium phenomena is applicable for quantum computation, as many quantum computers employ non-equilibrium processes for computations. In this paper, we investigate the evolution of bi- and tripartite operator mutual information of the time-evolution operator and the Pauli spin operators in the one-dimensional Ising model with magnetic field and the disordered Heisenberg model to study the properties of quantum circuits. In the Ising model, the early-time evolution qualitatively follows an effective light cone picture, and the late-time value is well described by Page’s value for a random pure state. In the Heisenberg model with strong disorder, we find that many-body localization prevents the information from propagating and being delocalized. We also find an effective Ising Hamiltonian that describes the time evolution of bi- and tripartite operator mutual information for the Heisenberg model in the large disorder regime.

DOI
10.21468/scipostphyscore.6.4.070

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Understanding how and whether local perturbations can affect the entire quantum system is a fundamental step in understanding non-equilibrium phenomena such as thermalization. This knowledge of non-equilibrium phenomena is applicable for quantum computation, as many quantum computers employ non-equilibrium processes for computations. In this paper, we investigate the evolution of bi- and tripartite operator mutual information of the time-evolution operator and the Pauli spin operators in the one-dimensional Ising model with magnetic field and the disordered Heisenberg model to study the properties of quantum circuits. In the Ising model, the early-time evolution qualitatively follows an effective light cone picture, and the late-time value is well described by Page’s value for a random pure state. In the Heisenberg model with strong disorder, we find that many-body localization prevents the information from propagating and being delocalized. We also find an effective Ising Hamiltonian that describes the time evolution of bi- and tripartite operator mutual information for the Heisenberg model in the large disorder regime.
Investigating the scrambling of quantum information (also known as quantum chaos) in many-body quantum systems provides valuable insights into the postquench evolution of a system. While various methods are available to understand the chaotic dynamics of these quantum systems, scrambling of mutual information following a quench has recently also emerged as a diagnostic of chaotic dynamics. In this work, we consider a chain of spin-1/21/21/2 particles of a finite length LLL evolving with the mixed-field Ising Hamiltonian and impose open boundary conditions. We simulate the time evolution of entanglement entropy and mutual information following a quench from the N\'eel state in this system using tensor networks and find that the entanglement entropy for nonintegrable systems saturates to a constant value at late times, while it continues to oscillate for integrable systems. We also find that mutual information peaks as a function of distance between intervals decay faster for nonintegrable systems compared to integrable systems, in agreement with the results in literature for XXZ chains. We compare the oscillations in entanglement entropy evolution obtained from simulations in the integrable case with analytic results from the quasiparticle picture and find agreement.
This thesis contributes to the study of quantum chaos and thermalization of closed quantum systems by applying tools from quantum information theory. We study scrambling – the delocalization of quantum information – in one-dimensional quantum many-body systems using the observable-independent tripartite information 𝐼3. We consider closed quantum systems that undergo unitary time evolution governed by a Hamiltonian, and compare them to the strong scrambling caused by random unitary operators (Haar scrambling). The tripartite information is a tool from quantum information theory that allows us to quantify correlations in space and time by considering the unitary operator evolving the system as a state |𝑈 (𝑡)⟩ in a doubled Hilbert space H ⊗ H. We found a ballistic spreading of information in translation invariant systems of spinless fermions that causes Haar scrambling in interacting models. For strongly disordered versions of the XXZ chain and the transverse-field Ising chain we found a complete breakdown of in- formation transport in non-interacting Anderson localized systems, as well as a logarithmically slow spreading of the information signal in systems that are said to be many-body localized (MBL).
We investigate operator delocalization in disordered one-dimensional spin chains by introducing -- besides the already known operator mass -- a complementary measure of operator complexity: the operator length. Like the operator nonstabilizerness, both these quantities are defined from the expansion of time-evolved operators in the Pauli basis. They characterize, respectively, the number of sites on which an operator acts nontrivially and the spatial extent of its support. We show that both the operator mass and length can be computed efficiently and exactly within a matrix-product-state (MPS) framework, providing direct access to their full probability distributions, without resorting to stochastic sampling. Applying this approach to the disordered XXZ spin-1/2 chain, we find sharply distinct behaviors in non-interacting and interacting regimes. In the Anderson-localized case, operator mass, length, and operator entanglement entropy rapidly saturate, signaling the absence of scrambling. By contrast, in the many-body localized (MBL) regime, for arbitrarily weak interactions, all quantities exhibit a robust logarithmic growth in time, consistent with the known logarithmic light cone of quantum-correlation propagation in MBL. We demonstrate that this behavior is quantitatively captured by an effective ℓ\ellℓ-bit model and persists across system sizes accessible via tensor-network simulations.
We consider a chain of spin-half particles of a finite length, evolved with the mixed-field Ising Hamiltonian and impose open boundary condition. We simulate the time evolution of entanglement entropy and mutual information following quench from the Néel state in this system using tensor networks. We find that the entanglement entropy for non-integrable systems saturates to a constant value at late times, however it continues to oscillate for integrable systems. We also find that mutual information peaks as a function of distance between intervals decay faster for non-integrable systems compared to integrable systems, in agreement with the conclusion of \cite{Alba:2019ybw} for XXZ chains. We compare the oscillations in entanglement entropy evolution obtained from simulations in the integrable case with analytic results from quasi-particle picture and find agreement.
Quantum information spreading and scrambling in many-body systems attract interest these days. Tripartite mutual information (TMI) based on operator-based entanglement entropy (EE) is an efficient tool for measuring them. In this paper, we study random spin chains that exhibit phase transitions accompanying nontrivial changes in topological properties. In their phase diagrams, there are two types of many-body localized (MBL) states and one thermalized regime intervening these two MBL states. Quench dynamics of the EE and TMI display interesting behaviors, providing an essential perspective concerning the encoding of quantum information. In particular, one of the models is self-dual, but information spreading measured by the TMI does not respect this self-duality. We investigate this phenomenon from the viewpoint of spatial structure of the stabilizers. In general, we find that knowledge of the phase diagram corresponding to the qubit system is useful for understanding the nature of quantum information spreading in that system. The connection between the present paper and random circuit of projective measurements and also topological Majorana quantum memory is remarked upon.
A closed quantum system never forgets its initial state, but the encoded information can get scrambled and become inaccessible without measuring a large fraction of all the system degrees of freedom. This scrambling can be diagnosed by studying the spatial spreading of initially local operators under the Heisenberg time evolution, and the decay of the out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOC). What insights can OTOCs provide to understand the dynamics of quantum many-body systems? What are the characteristic behaviors of OTOCs during the time evolution? How is information scrambling affected by the dissipation in open quantum many-body systems? We first study slow scrambling in many-body localized systems via calculating various correlators, two-point retarded correlators and OTOCs. Comparing with retarded correlators, OTOCs provide more information about the dynamics. We find that disorder slows and partially halts the onset of information scrambling. Instead of ballistic spreading, propagation of information forms a logarithmic light cone. Next, we study the finite-size scaling of OTOCs at late times in generic thermalizing quantum many-body systems. When energy is conserved, the late-time saturation value of the OTOC of generic traceless local operators scales as an inverse polynomial in the system size. This is in contrast to the inverse exponential scaling expected for chaotic dynamics without energy conservation. We also study information scrambling in open quantum many-body systems. We define a dissipative version of OTOC and study its behaviors in a prototypical chaotic quantum chain with dissipation. We find that dissipation leads to not only the overall decay of the scrambled information due to leaking, but also structural changes so that the information light cone can only reach a finite distance even when the effect of overall decay is removed. Finally, we construct a family of local Hamiltonians for understanding the asymmetric information scrambling. Our models live on a one-dimensional lattice and exhibit asymmetric butterfly light cone between the left and right spatial directions.