We observe that the many-body eigenstates of any quadratic, fermionic Hamiltonian with sublattice symmetry have quantized entanglement entropies between the sublattices: the entanglement comes in multiple singlets. Moreover, such systems always have a ground state that is maximally entangled between the two sublattices. In fact, we also show that under the same assumptions there always exists a (potentially distinct) basis of energy eigenstates that do not conserve the particle number in which each energy eigenstate is maximally entangled between the sublattices. No additional properties, such as translation invariance, are required. We also show that the quantization of ground-state entanglement may persist when interactions are introduced.
We observe that the many-body eigenstates of any quadratic, fermionic Hamiltonian with sublattice symmetry have quantized entanglement entropies between the sublattices: the entanglement comes in multiple singlets. Moreover, such systems always have a ground state that is maximally entangled between the two sublattices. In fact, we also show that under the same assumptions there always exists a (potentially distinct) basis of energy eigenstates that do not conserve the particle number in which each energy eigenstate is maximally entangled between the sublattices. No additional properties, such as translation invariance, are required. We also show that the quantization of ground-state entanglement may persist when interactions are introduced.
In a seminal paper [Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 1291 (1993)], Page conjectured that the entanglement entropy of typical pure states is Styp≃lnDA−(1/2)DA2/D, where DA and D are the Hilbert space dimensions of the subsystem and the system, respectively, and typicality is with respect to the Haar measure. Typical pure states are hence (nearly) maximally entangled. We prove that S1+=lnDA−[1/(2ln2)](lnDA)2/lnD is an upper bound for the average entanglement entropy of all many-body fermionic eigenstates of a class of translationally invariant quadratic Hamiltonians in one dimension, and that the variance vanishes with increasing system size. Consequently, whenever the size of the subsystem is not a vanishing fraction of the size of the system, typical eigenstates of such Hamiltonians have a volume-law entanglement but do not become maximally entangled as D→∞, i.e., they are qualitatively different from typical pure states. We also prove that, in the limit in which the subsystem size is a vanishing fraction of the system size, the average entanglement entropy is maximal.
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.
In a seminal paper [D. N. Page, Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 1291 (1993)], Page proved that the average entanglement entropy of subsystems of random pure states is ${S}_{\text{ave}}\ensuremath{\simeq}\mathrm{ln}{\mathcal{D}}_{\mathrm{A}}\ensuremath{-}(1/2){\mathcal{D}}_{\mathrm{A}}^{2}/\mathcal{D}$ for $1\ensuremath{\ll}{\mathcal{D}}_{\mathrm{A}}\ensuremath{\le}\sqrt{\mathcal{D}}$, where DA and D are the Hilbert space dimensions of the subsystem and the system, respectively. Hence, typical pure states are (nearly) maximally entangled. We develop tools to compute the average entanglement entropy ⟨S⟩ of all eigenstates of quadratic fermionic Hamiltonians. In particular, we derive exact bounds for the most general translationally invariant models $\mathrm{ln}{\mathcal{D}}_{\mathrm{A}}\ensuremath{-}(\mathrm{ln}{\mathcal{D}}_{\mathrm{A}}{)}^{2}/\mathrm{ln}\mathcal{D}\ensuremath{\le}⟨S⟩\ensuremath{\le}\mathrm{ln}{\mathcal{D}}_{\mathrm{A}}\ensuremath{-}[1/(2\mathrm{ln}2)](\mathrm{ln}{\mathcal{D}}_{\mathrm{A}}{)}^{2}/\mathrm{ln}\mathcal{D}$. Consequently, we prove that (i) if the subsystem size is a finite fraction of the system size, then ⟨S⟩<lnDA in the thermodynamic limit; i.e., the average over eigenstates of the Hamiltonian departs from the result for typical pure states, and (ii) in the limit in which the subsystem size is a vanishing fraction of the system size, the average entanglement entropy is maximal; i.e., typical eigenstates of such Hamiltonians exhibit eigenstate thermalization.
In a recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 180604 (2020)], we introduced a closed-form analytic expression for the average bipartite von Neumann entanglement entropy of many-body eigenstates of random quadratic Hamiltonians, namely, of Hamiltonians whose single-particle eigenstates have random coefficients in the position basis. A paradigmatic Hamiltonian for which the expression is valid is the quadratic Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK2) model in its Dirac fermion formulation. Here we show that the applicability of our result is much broader. Most prominently, it is also relevant for local Hamiltonians such as the three-dimensional (3D) Anderson model at weak disorder. Moreover, it describes the average entanglement entropy in Hamiltonians without particle-number conservation, such as the SYK2 model in the Majorana fermion formulation and the 3D Anderson model with additional terms that break particle-number conservation. We extend our analysis to the average bipartite second R\'enyi entanglement entropy of eigenstates of the same quadratic Hamiltonians, which is derived analytically and tested numerically. We conjecture that our results for the entanglement entropies of many-body eigenstates apply to quadratic Hamiltonians whose single-particle eigenstates exhibit quantum chaos, which we refer to as quantum-chaotic quadratic Hamiltonians.
The entanglement between occupation numbers of different single particle basis states depends on coupling between different single particle basis states in the second-quantized Hamiltonian. Thus, in principle, interaction is not necessary for occupation-number entanglement to appear. However, in order to characterize quantum correlation caused by interaction , we use the eigenstates of the single-particle Hamiltonian as the single particle basis upon which the occupation-number entanglement is defined. Using this so-called proper single particle basis, if there is no interaction, the many-particle second-quantized Hamiltonian is diagonalized and thus cannot generate entanglement, while its eigenstates can always be chosen to be non-entangled. If there is interaction, entanglement in the proper single particle basis arises in energy eigenstates and can be dynamically generated. Using the proper single particle basis, we discuss occupation-number entanglement in important eigenstates, especially ground states, of systems of many identical particles, in exploring insights the notion of entanglement sheds on many-particle physics. The discussions on Fermi systems start with Fermi gas, the Hartree–Fock approximation and the electron–hole entanglement in excitations. In the ground state of a Fermi liquid, in terms of the Landau quasiparticles, entanglement becomes negligible. The entanglement in a quantum Hall state is quantified as − f ln f − (1 − f )ln(1 − f ), where f is the proper fractional part of the filling factor. For BCS superconductivity, the entanglement is a function of the relative momentum wavefunction of the Cooper pair g k , and is thus directly related to the superconducting energy gap, and vanishes if and only if superconductivity vanishes. For a spinless Bose system, entanglement does not appear in the Hartree–Gross–Pitaevskii approximation, but becomes important in the Bogoliubov theory, as a characterization of two-particle correlation caused by the weak interaction. In these examples, the interaction-induced entanglement as calculated is directly related to the macroscopic physical properties.
Simple physical interactions between spin-1∕2 particles may result in quantum states that exhibit exotic correlations that are difficult to find if one simply explores state spaces of multipartite systems. In particular, we present a detailed investigation of the well-known Ising model of a chain (ring) of spin-1∕2 particles (qubits) in a transverse magnetic field. We present explicit expressions for eigenstates of the model Hamiltonian for arbitrary number of spin-1∕2 particles in the chain in the standard (computer) basis, and we investigate quantum entanglement between individual qubits. We analyze bipartite as well as multipartite entanglement in the ground state of the model. In particular, we show that bipartite entanglement between pairs of qubits of the Ising chain (measured in terms of a concurrence) as a function of the parameter $\ensuremath{\lambda}$ has a maximum around the point $\ensuremath{\lambda}=1$, and it monotonically decreases for large values of $\ensuremath{\lambda}$. We prove that in the limit $\ensuremath{\lambda}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$ this state is locally unitary equivalent to an N-partite Greenberger-Horn-Zeilinger state. We also analyze a very specific eigenstate of the Ising Hamiltonian with a zero eigenenergy (we denote this eigenstate as the X-state). This X-state exhibits the ``extreme'' entanglement in a sense that an arbitrary subset A of $k\ensuremath{\leqslant}n$ qubits in the Ising chain composed of N=2n+1 qubits is maximally entangled with the remaining qubits (set B) in the chain. In addition, we prove that by performing a local operation just on the subset B, one can transform the X-state into a direct product of k singlets shared by the parties A and B. This property of the X-state can be utilized for new secure multipartite communication protocols.