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arXiv:2103.02634 · PRX Quantum

Emergent Statistical Mechanics from Properties of Disordered Random Matrix Product States

Jonas Haferkamp, Christian Bertoni, Ingo Roth, Jens Eisert

Published Oct 13, 2021• 31 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The study of generic properties of quantum states has led to an abundance of insightful results.A meaningful set of states that can be efficiently prepared in experiments are ground states of gapped local Hamiltonians, which are well approximated by matrix product states.In this work, we introduce a picture of generic states within the trivial phase of matter with respect to their nonequilibrium and entropic properties.We do so by rigorously exploring nontranslation-invariant matrix product states drawn from a local independent and identically distributed Haar measure.We arrive at these results by exploiting techniques for computing moments of random unitary matrices and by exploiting a mapping to partition functions of classical statistical models, a method that has lead to valuable insights on local random quantum circuits.Specifically, we prove that such disordered random matrix product states equilibrate exponentially well with overwhelming probability under the time evolution of Hamiltonians featuring a nondegenerate spectrum.Moreover, we prove two results about the entanglement Rényi entropy: the entropy with respect to sufficiently disconnected subsystems is generically extensive in the system size, and for small connected systems, the entropy is almost maximal for sufficiently large bond dimensions.

DOI
10.1103/prxquantum.2.040308

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•Jan 1, 2015•19 citations
The study of generic properties of quantum states has led to an abundance of insightful results.A meaningful set of states that can be efficiently prepared in experiments are ground states of gapped local Hamiltonians, which are well approximated by matrix product states.In this work, we introduce a picture of generic states within the trivial phase of matter with respect to their nonequilibrium and entropic properties.We do so by rigorously exploring nontranslation-invariant matrix product states drawn from a local independent and identically distributed Haar measure.We arrive at these results by exploiting techniques for computing moments of random unitary matrices and by exploiting a mapping to partition functions of classical statistical models, a method that has lead to valuable insights on local random quantum circuits.Specifically, we prove that such disordered random matrix product states equilibrate exponentially well with overwhelming probability under the time evolution of Hamiltonians featuring a nondegenerate spectrum.Moreover, we prove two results about the entanglement Rényi entropy: the entropy with respect to sufficiently disconnected subsystems is generically extensive in the system size, and for small connected systems, the entropy is almost maximal for sufficiently large bond dimensions.
We prove that all Rényi entanglement entropies of spin-chains described by generic (gapped), translational invariant matrix product states (MPS) are extensive for disconnected sub-systems: All Rényi entanglement entropy densities of the sub-system consisting of every k-th spin are non-zero in the thermodynamic limit if and only if the state does not converge to a product state in the thermodynamic limit. Furthermore, we provide explicit lower bounds to the entanglement entropy in terms of the expansion coefficient of the transfer operator of the MPS and spectral properties of its fixed point in canonical form. As side-result we obtain a lower bound for the expansion coefficient and singular value distribution of a primitve quantum channel in terms of its Kraus-rank and entropic properties of its fixed-point. For unital quantum channels this yields a very simple lower bound on the distribution of singular values and the expansion coefficient in terms of the Kraus-rank. Physically, our results are motivated by questions about equilibration in many-body localized systems, which we review.
Randomness generation through quantum-chaotic evolution underpins foundational questions in statistical mechanics and applications across quantum information science, including benchmarking, tomography, metrology, and demonstrations of quantum computational advantage. While statistical mechanics successfully captures the temporal averages of local observables, understanding randomness at the level of higher statistical moments remains a daunting challenge, with analytic progress largely confined to random quantum circuit models or fine-tuned systems exhibiting space-time duality. Here we study how much randomness can be dynamically generated by generic quantum-chaotic evolution under physical, non-random Hamiltonians. Combining theoretical insights with numerical simulations, we show that for broad classes of initially unentangled states, the dynamics become effectively Haar-random well before the system can ergodically explore the physically accessible Hilbert space. Both local and highly nonlocal observables, including entanglement measures, equilibrate to their Haar expectation values and fluctuations on polynomial timescales with remarkably high numerical precision, and with the fastest randomization occurring in regions of parameter space previously identified as maximally chaotic. Interestingly, this effective randomization can occur on timescales linear in system size, suggesting that the sub-ballistic growth of Renyi entropies typically observed in systems with conservation laws can be bypassed in non-random Hamiltonians with an appropriate choice of initial conditions.
We prove that generic quantum local Hamiltonians are gapless. In fact, we prove that there is a continuous density of states above the ground state. The Hamiltonian can be on a lattice in any spatial dimension or on a graph with a bounded maximum vertex degree. The type of interactions allowed for include translational invariance in a disorder (i.e., probabilistic) sense with some assumptions on the local distributions. Examples include many-body localization and random spin models. We calculate the scaling of the gap with the system's size when the local terms are distributed according to a Gaussian β orthogonal random matrix ensemble. As a corollary, there exist finite size partitions with respect to which the ground state is arbitrarily close to a product state. When the local eigenvalue distribution is discrete, in addition to the lack of an energy gap in the limit, we prove that the ground state has finite size degeneracies. The proofs are simple and constructive. This work excludes the important class of truly translationally invariant Hamiltonians where the local terms are all equal.
Recent studies of "deep thermalization" have revealed universal physics in quantum many-body dynamics beyond equilibration towards Gibbs states: maximally random quantum state ensembles can emerge on local subsystems, generated by measurements on their complement. In this work, we further identify a new form of universality exhibited in the "finer fingerprints" of quantum dynamics for local subsystems, induced by global unitary time-evolution. Specifically, we consider the projected Kraus ensemble, an ensemble of Kraus operators obtained by unraveling the quantum channel on a small subsystem with respect to knowledge of the classical configurations of its complement. Our central result is a one-parameter random matrix Ansatz that captures the ensemble's emergent statistical behavior along particular spacetime scalings, valid for generic 1D circuit dynamics without conservation laws: the ensemble is described by the product of a complex Ginibre random matrix and an independent log-normal random real scalar. The former encodes scrambling within the subsystem, captured by rotational invariance of the Ginibre measure, whereas the latter encodes fluctuations in the Born probabilities, arising from locality of the underlying dynamics. Our Ansatz can be established in the special cases of dynamics generated by global Haar random unitaries and dual-unitary circuits, while we motivate it for generic circuits using arguments of spacetime duality and the multiplicative ergodic theorem on long products of spatial transfer matrices. Extensive numerical simulations for random and Floquet circuit models verify these predictions. This universality in Kraus operators also provides a microscopic mechanism for deep thermalization in generic 1D quantum circuit dynamics, and has implications for local quantum information recoverability involving classical side information tied to knowledge of the bath.
Classical simulation of quantum many-body systems is in general a challenging problem for the simple reason that the dimension of the Hilbert space grows exponentially with the system size. In particular, merely encoding a generic quantum many-body state requires an exponential number of bits. However, condensed matter physicists are mostly interested in local Hamiltonians and especially their ground states, which are highly non-generic. Thus, we might hope that at least some physical systems allow efficient classical simulation.Starting with one-dimensional (1D) quantum systems (i.e., the simplest nontrivial case), the first basic question is: Which classes of states have efficient classical representations? It turns out that this question is quantitatively related to the amount of entanglement in the state, for states with ``little entanglement'' are well approximated by matrix product states (a data structure that can be manipulated efficiently on a classical computer). At a technical level, the mathematical notion for ``little entanglement'' is area law, which has been proved for unique ground states in 1D gapped systems. We establish an area law for constant-fold degenerate ground states in 1D gapped systems and thus explain the effectiveness of matrix-product-state methods in (e.g.) symmetry breaking phases. This result might not be intuitively trivial as degenerate ground states in gapped systems can be long-range correlated.Suppose an efficient classical representation exists. How can one find it efficiently? The density matrix renormalization group is the leading numerical method for computing ground states in 1D quantum systems. However, it is a heuristic algorithm and the possibility that it may fail in some cases cannot be completely ruled out. Recently, a provably efficient variant of the density matrix renormalization group has been developed for frustration-free 1D gapped systems. We generalize this algorithm to all (i.e., possibly frustrated) 1D gapped systems. Note that the ground-state energy of 1D gapless Hamiltonians is computationally intractable even in the presence of translational invariance.It is tempting to extend methods and tools in 1D to two and higher dimensions (2+D), e.g., matrix product states are generalized to tensor network states. Since an area law for entanglement (if formulated properly) implies efficient matrix product state representations in 1D, an interesting question is whether a similar implication holds in 2+D. Roughly speaking, we show that an area law for entanglement (in any reasonable formulation) does not always imply efficient tensor network representations of the ground states of 2+D local Hamiltonians even in the presence of translational invariance. It should be emphasized that this result does not contradict with the common sense that in practice quantum states with more entanglement usually require more space to be stored classically; rather, it demonstrates that the relationship between entanglement and efficient classical representations is still far from being well understood.Excited eigenstates participate in the dynamics of quantum systems and are particularly relevant to the phenomenon of many-body localization (absence of transport at finite temperature in strongly correlated systems). We study the entanglement of excited eigenstates in random spin chains and expect that its singularities coincide with dynamical quantum phase transitions. This expectation is confirmed in the disordered quantum Ising chain using both analytical and numerical methods.Finally, we study the problem of generating ground states (possibly with topological order) in 1D gapped systems using quantum circuits. This is an interesting problem both in theory and in practice. It not only characterizes the essential difference between the entanglement patterns that give rise to trivial and nontrivial topological order, but also quantifies the difficulty of preparing quantum states with a quantum computer (in experiments).