Gauging a global symmetry of a system amounts to introducing new degrees of freedom whose transformation rule makes the overall system observe a local symmetry. In quantum systems there can be obstructions to gauging a global symmetry. When this happens the symmetry is dubbed anomalous. Such obstructions are related to the fact that the global symmetry cannot be written as a tensor product of local operators. In this paper we study nonlocal symmetries that have an additional structure: They take the form of a matrix product operator (MPO). We exploit the tensor network structure of the MPOs to construct local operators from them, satisfying the same group relations; that is, we are able to localize even anomalous MPOs. For nonanomalous MPOs, we use these local operators to explicitly gauge the MPO symmetry of a one-dimensional quantum state obtaining nontrivial gauged states. We show that our gauging procedure satisfies all the desired properties that the standard on-site case does. We also show how this procedure is naturally represented in matrix product states protected by MPO symmetries. In the case of anomalous MPOs, we shed light on the obstructions to gauging these symmetries.
Gauging a global symmetry of a system amounts to introducing new degrees of freedom whose transformation rule makes the overall system observe a local symmetry. In quantum systems there can be obstructions to gauging a global symmetry. When this happens the symmetry is dubbed anomalous. Such obstructions are related to the fact that the global symmetry cannot be written as a tensor product of local operators. In this paper we study nonlocal symmetries that have an additional structure: They take the form of a matrix product operator (MPO). We exploit the tensor network structure of the MPOs to construct local operators from them, satisfying the same group relations; that is, we are able to localize even anomalous MPOs. For nonanomalous MPOs, we use these local operators to explicitly gauge the MPO symmetry of a one-dimensional quantum state obtaining nontrivial gauged states. We show that our gauging procedure satisfies all the desired properties that the standard on-site case does. We also show how this procedure is naturally represented in matrix product states protected by MPO symmetries. In the case of anomalous MPOs, we shed light on the obstructions to gauging these symmetries.
We classify the different ways in which matrix product states (MPSs) can stay invariant under the action of matrix product operator (MPO) symmetries. This is achieved through a local characterization of how the MPSs, that generate a ground space, remain invariant under a global MPO symmetry. This characterization yields a set of quantities satisfying the coupled pentagon equations, associated with a module category over the fusion category that describes the MPO symmetry. Equivalence classes of these quantities provide complete invariants for an MPO symmetry protected phase: they are robust under continuous deformations of the MPS tensor, and two phases with the same equivalence class can be connected by a symmetric gapped path. Our techniques match and extend the known renormalization fixed point classifications and facilitate the numerical study of these systems. For MPO symmetries described by a group, we recover the symmetry protected topological order classification for unique and degenerate ground states. Moreover, we study the interplay between time reversal symmetry and an MPO symmetry and we also provide examples of our classification, together with explicit constructions based on groups. Finally, we elaborate on the connection between our setup and gapped boundaries of two-dimensional topological systems, where MPO symmetries also play a key role.
In this work, we examine the consequences of the existence of a finite group of matrix product unitary (MPU) symmetries for matrix product states (MPS). We generalize the well-understood picture of onsite unitary symmetries, which give rise to virtual symmetry defects given by insertions of operators in the bonds of the MPS. In the MPU case, we can define analogous defect tensors, this time sitting on lattice sites, that can be created, moved, and fused by local unitary operators. We leverage this formalism to study the gauging of MPU symmetries. We introduce a condition, block independence, under which we can gauge the symmetries by promoting the symmetry defects to gauge degrees of freedom, yielding an MPS of the same bond dimension that supports a local version of the symmetry given by commuting gauge constraints. Whenever block independence does not hold (which happens, in particular, whenever the symmetry representation is anomalous), a modification of our method which we call state-level gauging still gives rise to a locally symmetric MPS by promotion of the symmetry defects, at the expense of producing gauge constraints that do not commute on different sites.
We propose an index of non-invertible symmetry operators in 1+1 dimensions and discuss its relation to the realizability of non-invertible symmetries on the tensor product of finite dimensional on-site Hilbert spaces on the lattice. Our index generalizes the Gross-Nesme-Vogts-Werner index of invertible symmetry operators represented by quantum cellular automata (QCAs). Assuming that all fusion channels of symmetry operators have the same index, we show that the fusion rules of finitely many symmetry operators on a tensor product Hilbert space can agree, up to QCAs, only with those of weakly integral fusion categories. We also discuss an attempt to establish an index theory for non-invertible symmetries within the framework of tensor networks. To this end, we first propose a general class of matrix product operators (MPOs) that describe non-invertible symmetries on a tensor product Hilbert space. These MPOs, which we refer to as topological injective MPOs, include all invertible symmetries, non-anomalous fusion category symmetries, and the Kramers-Wannier symmetries for finite abelian groups. For topological injective MPOs, we construct the defect Hilbert spaces and the corresponding sequential quantum circuit representations. We also show that all fusion channels of topological injective MPOs have the same index if there exist fusion and splitting tensors that satisfy appropriate conditions. The existence of such fusion and splitting tensors has not been proven in general, although we construct them explicitly for all examples of topological injective MPOs listed above.
Matrix-product operators (MPOs) appear throughout the study of integrable lattice models, notably as the transfer matrices. They can also be used as transformations to construct dualities between such models, both invertible (including unitary) and non-invertible (including discrete gauging). We analyse how the local Yang--Baxter integrable structures are modified under such dualities. We see that the Rˇ-matrix, that appears in the baxterization approach to integrability, transforms in a simple manner. We further argue for a broad class of MPO dualities that the usual Yang--Baxter R-matrix should be extended. This extended R-matrix satisfies modified algebraic relations, including a modified Yang--Baxter algebra previously identified in the unitary case, that altogether give a local integrable structure underlying the commuting transfer matrices of the dual model. We illustrate these results with two case studies, analysing an invertible unitary MPO and a non-invertible MPO both applied to the canonical XXZ spin chain. The former is the cluster entangler, arising in the study of symmetry-protected topological phases, while the latter is the Kramers--Wannier duality. We show several results for MPOs with exact MPO inverses that are of independent interest.
Generalized symmetries have emerged as a powerful organizing principle for exotic quantum phases. However, their role in open quantum systems, especially for non-invertible cases, remains largely unexplored. We address this by applying a unified tensor-network framework for mixed states with fusion categorical symmetry, which encompasses both invertible and non-invertible ones represented as matrix product operators, and reveals novel quantum phases unique to the open-system setting through the lens of quantum anomalies. In contrast to pure states, where anomalies forbid symmetric short-range correlated phases in one dimension, we construct a broad class of renormalization fixed-point mixed states with zero correlation length given arbitrary strong anomalous fusion categorical symmetry. These states, representing nontrivial mixed-state phases of matter, cannot be efficient prepared via local quantum channels, indicating anomaly-enforced long-range entanglement in the absence of local correlations. Despite this obstruction, we further provide constructions of measurement-enhanced quantum circuits to prepare all these constructed states, offering a practical way to realize and probe anomalous generalized symmetries in open quantum systems.
We reconstruct all (2+1)D quantum double models of finite groups from their boundary symmetries through the repeated application of a gauging procedure, extending the existing construction for abelian groups. We employ the recently proposed categorical gauging framework, based on matrix product operators (MPOs), to derive the appropriate gauging procedure for the RepG symmetries appearing in our construction and give an explicit description of the dual emergent G symmetry, which is our main technical contribution. Furthermore, we relate the possible gapped boundaries of the quantum double models to the quantum phases of the one-dimensional input state to the iterated gauging procedure. Finally, we propose a gauging procedure for 1-form RepG symmetries on a two-dimensional lattice and use it to extend our results to the construction of (3+1)D quantum doubles models through the iterative gauging of (2+1)-dimensional symmetries.