Dual-unitary circuits are being vigorously studied as models of many-body quantum chaos that can be solved exactly for correlation functions and time evolution of states. Here we study their classical counterparts defining dual-canonical transformations and associated dual-Koopman operators. Classical many-body systems constructed from these have the property, like their quantum counterparts, that the correlations vanish everywhere except on the light cone, on which they decay with rates governed by a simple contractive map. Providing a large class of such dual-canonical transformations, we study in detail the example of a coupled standard map and show analytically that arbitrarily away from the integrable case, in the thermodynamic limit the system is mixing. We also define "perfect" Koopman operators that lead to the correlation vanishing everywhere including on the light cone and provide an example of a cat-map lattice which would qualify to be a Bernoulli system at the apex of the ergodic hierarchy.
Dual-unitary circuits are being vigorously studied as models of many-body quantum chaos that can be solved exactly for correlation functions and time evolution of states. Here we study their classical counterparts defining dual-canonical transformations and associated dual-Koopman operators. Classical many-body systems constructed from these have the property, like their quantum counterparts, that the correlations vanish everywhere except on the light cone, on which they decay with rates governed by a simple contractive map. Providing a large class of such dual-canonical transformations, we study in detail the example of a coupled standard map and show analytically that arbitrarily away from the integrable case, in the thermodynamic limit the system is mixing. We also define "perfect" Koopman operators that lead to the correlation vanishing everywhere including on the light cone and provide an example of a cat-map lattice which would qualify to be a Bernoulli system at the apex of the ergodic hierarchy.
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) of the basic two-particle unitary building block, U, 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 and 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). 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 propose a general exact method of calculating dynamical correlation functions in dual symplectic brick-wall circuits in one dimension. These are deterministic classical many-body dynamical systems which can be interpreted in terms of symplectic dynamics in two orthogonal (time and space) directions. In close analogy with quantum dual-unitary circuits, we prove that two-point dynamical correlation functions are non-vanishing only along the edges of the light cones. The dynamical correlations are exactly computable in terms of a one-site Markov transfer operator, which is generally of infinite dimensionality. We test our theory in a specific family of dual-symplectic circuits, describing the dynamics of a classical Floquet spin chain. Remarkably, expressing these models in the form of a composition of rotations leads to a transfer operator with a block diagonal form in the basis of spherical harmonics. This allows us to obtain analytical predictions for simple local observables. We demonstrate the validity of our theory by comparison with Monte Carlo simulations, displaying excellent agreement with the latter for a choice of observables.
Abstract Dual-unitary brickwork circuits are an exactly-solvable model for many-body chaotic quantum systems, based on 2-site gates which are unitary in both the time and space directions. Prosen has recently described an alternative model called dual-unitary interactions round-a-face, which we here call clockwork, based on 2-controlled 1-site unitaries composed in a non-brickwork structure, yet with many of the same attractive global properties. We present a 2-categorical framework that simultaneously generalizes these two existing models, and use it to show that brickwork and clockwork circuits can interact richly, yielding new types of generalized heterogeneous circuits. We show that these interactions are governed by quantum combinatorial data, which we precisely characterize. These generalized circuits remain exactly-solvable and we show that they retain the attractive features of the original models such as single-site correlation functions vanishing everywhere except on the causal light-cone. Our framework allows us to directly extend the notion of solvable initial states to these biunitary circuits, and we show these circuits demonstrate maximal entanglement growth and exact thermalization after finitely many time steps.
Dual-unitary circuits are paradigmatic examples of exactly solvable yet chaotic quantum many-body systems, but solvability naturally goes along with a degree of nongeneric behavior. By investigating the effect of weakly broken dual unitarity on the spreading of local operators, we study whether, and how, small deviations from dual unitarity recover fully generic many-body dynamics. We present a discrete path-integral formula for the out-of-time-order correlator and recover a butterfly velocity smaller than the light-cone velocity, v_{B}<v_{LC}, and a diffusively broadening operator front, two generic features of ergodic quantum spin chains absent in dual-unitary circuit dynamics. The butterfly velocity and diffusion constant are determined by a small set of microscopic quantities, and the operator entanglement of the gates has a crucial role.
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 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.