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arXiv:2205.08842 · PRX Quantum

Construction and Local Equivalence of Dual-Unitary Operators: From Dynamical Maps to Quantum Combinatorial Designs

Suhail Ahmad Rather, S. Aravinda, Arul Lakshminarayan

Published Dec 20, 2022• 28 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

While quantum circuits built from two-particle dual-unitary (maximally entangled) operators serve as minimal models of typically nonintegrable many-body systems, the construction and characterization of dual-unitary operators themselves are only partially understood.A nonlinear map on the space of unitary operators has been proposed in Phys.Rev. Lett.125, 070501 (2020) that results in operators being arbitrarily close to dual unitaries.Here, we study the map analytically for the two-qubit case describing the basins of attraction, fixed points, and rates of approach to dual unitaries.A subset of dual-unitary operators having maximum entangling power are 2-unitary operators or perfect tensors and these are equivalent to four-party absolutely maximally entangled states.It is known that they only exist if the local dimension is larger than d = 2.We use the nonlinear map, and introduce stochastic variants of it, to construct explicit examples of new dual and 2-unitary operators.A necessary criterion for their local unitary equivalence to distinguish classes is also introduced and used to display various concrete results and a conjecture in d = 3.It is known that orthogonal Latin squares provide a "classical combinatorial design" for constructing permutations that are 2-unitary.We extend the underlying design from classical to genuine quantum ones for general dual-unitary operators and give an example of what might be the smallest-sized genuinely quantum design of a 2-unitary in d = 4.

DOI
10.1103/prxquantum.3.040331

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While quantum circuits built from two-particle dual-unitary (maximally entangled) operators serve as minimal models of typically nonintegrable many-body systems, the construction and characterization of dual-unitary operators themselves are only partially understood.A nonlinear map on the space of unitary operators has been proposed in Phys.Rev. Lett.125, 070501 (2020) that results in operators being arbitrarily close to dual unitaries.Here, we study the map analytically for the two-qubit case describing the basins of attraction, fixed points, and rates of approach to dual unitaries.A subset of dual-unitary operators having maximum entangling power are 2-unitary operators or perfect tensors and these are equivalent to four-party absolutely maximally entangled states.It is known that they only exist if the local dimension is larger than d = 2.We use the nonlinear map, and introduce stochastic variants of it, to construct explicit examples of new dual and 2-unitary operators.A necessary criterion for their local unitary equivalence to distinguish classes is also introduced and used to display various concrete results and a conjecture in d = 3.It is known that orthogonal Latin squares provide a "classical combinatorial design" for constructing permutations that are 2-unitary.We extend the underlying design from classical to genuine quantum ones for general dual-unitary operators and give an example of what might be the smallest-sized genuinely quantum design of a 2-unitary in d = 4.
Maximally entangled bipartite unitary operators or gates find various applications from quantum information to many-body physics wherein they are building blocks of minimal models of quantum chaos. In the latter case, they are referred to as "dual unitaries." Dual unitary operators that can create the maximum average entanglement when acting on product states have to satisfy additional constraints. These have been called "2-unitaries" and are examples of perfect tensors that can be used to construct absolutely maximally entangled states of four parties. Hitherto, no systematic method exists in any local dimension, which results in the formation of such special classes of unitary operators. We outline an iterative protocol, a nonlinear map on the space of unitary operators, that creates ensembles whose members are arbitrarily close to being dual unitaries. For qutrits and ququads we find that a slightly modified protocol yields a plethora of 2-unitaries.
Deterministic classical dynamical systems have an ergodic hierarchy, from ergodic through mixing, to Bernoulli systems that are ``as random as a coin toss.'' Dual-unitary circuits have been recently introduced as solvable models of many-body nonintegrable quantum chaotic systems having a hierarchy of ergodic properties. We extend this to include the apex of a putative quantum ergodic hierarchy which is Bernoulli, in the sense that correlations of single and two-particle observables vanish at space-time separated points. We derive a condition based on the entangling power ep(U){e}_{p}(U)ep​(U) of the basic two-particle unitary building block, UUU, of the circuit that guarantees mixing, and when maximized, corresponds to Bernoulli circuits. Additionally, we show, both analytically and numerically, how local averaging over random realizations of the single-particle unitaries ui{u}_{i}ui​ and vi{v}_{i}vi​ such that the building block is ${U}^{\ensuremath{'}}=({u}_{1}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{u}_{2})U({v}_{1}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{v}_{2})$ leads to an identification of the average mixing rate as being determined predominantly by the entangling power ep(U){e}_{p}(U)ep​(U). Finally, we provide several, both analytical and numerical, ways to construct dual-unitary operators covering the entire possible range of entangling power. We construct a coupled quantum cat map, which is dual-unitary for all local dimensions and a 2-unitary or perfect tensor for odd local dimensions, and can be used to build Bernoulli circuits.
We consider one-dimensional quantum circuits of the brickwork type, where the fundamental quantum gate is dual unitary. Such models are solvable: the dynamical correlation functions of the infinite temperature ensemble can be computed exactly. We review various existing constructions for dual unitary gates and we supplement them with new ideas in a number of cases. We discuss connections with various topics in physics and mathematics, including quantum information theory, tensor networks for the AdS/CFT correspondence (holographic error correcting codes), classical combinatorial designs (orthogonal Latin squares), planar algebras, and Yang-Baxter maps. Afterwards we consider the ergodicity properties of a special class of dual unitary models, where the local gate is a permutation matrix. We find an unexpected phenomenon: nonergodic behavior can manifest itself in multisite correlations, even in those cases when the one-site correlation functions are fully chaotic (completely thermalizing). We also discuss the circuits built out of perfect tensors. They appear locally as the most chaotic and most scrambling circuits, nevertheless they can show global signs of nonergodicity: if the perfect tensor is constructed from a linear map over finite fields, then the resulting circuit can show exact quantum revivals at unexpectedly short times. A brief mathematical treatment of the recurrence time in such models is presented in Appendix (written by Roland Bacher and Denis Serre).
Dual unitary gates are highly non-local two-qudit unitary gates that have been studied extensively in quantum many-body physics and quantum information in the recent past. A special class of dual unitary gates consists of rank-four perfect tensors that are equivalent to highly entangled multipartite pure states called absolutely maximally entangled (AME) states. In this work, numerical and analytical constructions of dual unitary gates and perfect tensors that are diagonal in a special maximally entangled basis are presented. The main ingredient in our construction is a phase-valued (unimodular) two-dimensional array whose discrete Fourier transform is also unimodular. We obtain perfect tensors for several local Hilbert space dimensions, particularly, in dimension six. A perfect tensor in local dimension six is equivalent to an AME state of four qudits, denoted as AME(4,6). Such a state cannot be constructed from existing constructions of AME states based on error-correcting codes and graph states. An explicit construction of AME(4,6) states is provided in this work using two-qudit controlled and single-qudit gates making it feasible to generate such states experimentally.
Abstract We study bipartite unitary operators which stay invariant under the local actions of diagonal unitary and orthogonal groups. We investigate structural properties of these operators, arguing that the diagonal symmetry makes them suitable for analytical study. As a first application, we construct large new families of dual unitary gates in arbitrary finite dimensions, which are important toy models for entanglement spreading in quantum circuits. We then analyze the non-local nature of these invariant operators, both in discrete (operator Schmidt rank) and continuous (entangling power) settings. Our scrutiny reveals that these operators can be used to simulate any bipartite unitary gate via stochastic local operations and classical communication. Furthermore, we establish a one-to-one connection between the set of local diagonal unitary invariant dual unitary operators with maximum entangling power and the set of complex Hadamard matrices. Finally, we discuss distinguishability of unitary operators in the setting of the stated diagonal symmetry.
Dual-unitary quantum circuits have recently attracted attention as an analytically tractable model of many-body quantum dynamics. Consisting of a 1+1D lattice of 2-qudit gates arranged in a 'brickwork' pattern, these models are defined by the constraint that each gate must remain unitary under swapping the roles of space and time. This dual-unitarity restricts the dynamics of local operators in these circuits: the support of any such operator must grow at the effective speed of light of the system, along one or both of the edges of a causal light cone set by the geometry of the circuit. Using this property, it is shown here that for 1+1D dual-unitary circuits the set of width- w conserved densities (constructed from operators supported over w consecutive sites) is in one-to-one correspondence with the set of width- w solitons – operators which, up to a multiplicative phase, are simply spatially translated at the effective speed of light by the dual-unitary dynamics. A number of ways to construct these many-body solitons (explicitly in the case where the local Hilbert space dimension d=2 ) are then demonstrated: firstly, via a simple construction involving products of smaller, constituent solitons; and secondly, via a construction which cannot be understood as simply in terms of products of smaller solitons, but which does have a neat interpretation in terms of products of fermions under a Jordan-Wigner transformation. This provides partial progress towards a characterisation of the microscopic structure of complex many-body solitons (in dual-unitary circuits on qubits), whilst also establishing a link between fermionic models and dual-unitary circuits, advancing our understanding of what kinds of physics can be explored in this framework.