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arXiv:2310.07770 · Quantum

Approximate Quantum Codes From Long Wormholes

Gregory S. Bentsen, Phuc Nguyen, Brian G. Swingle

Published Aug 14, 2024• 4 citations
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Abstract

We discuss families of approximate quantum error correcting codes which arise as the nearly-degenerate ground states of certain quantum many-body Hamiltonians composed of non-commuting terms. For exact codes, the conditions for error correction can be formulated in terms of the vanishing of a two-sided mutual information in a low-temperature thermofield double state. We consider a notion of distance for approximate codes obtained by demanding that this mutual information instead be small, and we evaluate this mutual information for the SYK model and for a family of low-rank SYK models. After an extrapolation to nearly zero temperature, we find that both kinds of models produce fermionic codes with constant rate as the number, N , of fermions goes to infinity. For SYK, the distance scales as N1/2 , and for low-rank SYK, the distance can be arbitrarily close to linear scaling, e.g. N.99 , while maintaining a constant rate. We also consider an analog of the no low-energy trivial states property which we dub the no low-energy adiabatically accessible states property and show that these models do have low-energy states that can be prepared adiabatically in a time that does not scale with system size N . We discuss a holographic model of these codes in which the large code distance is a consequence of the emergence of a long wormhole geometry in a simple model of quantum gravity.

DOI
10.22331/q-2024-08-14-1439

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We discuss families of approximate quantum error correcting codes which arise as the nearly-degenerate ground states of certain quantum many-body Hamiltonians composed of non-commuting terms. For exact codes, the conditions for error correction can be formulated in terms of the vanishing of a two-sided mutual information in a low-temperature thermofield double state. We consider a notion of distance for approximate codes obtained by demanding that this mutual information instead be small, and we evaluate this mutual information for the SYK model and for a family of low-rank SYK models. After an extrapolation to nearly zero temperature, we find that both kinds of models produce fermionic codes with constant rate as the number, N , of fermions goes to infinity. For SYK, the distance scales as N1/2 , and for low-rank SYK, the distance can be arbitrarily close to linear scaling, e.g. N.99 , while maintaining a constant rate. We also consider an analog of the no low-energy trivial states property which we dub the no low-energy adiabatically accessible states property and show that these models do have low-energy states that can be prepared adiabatically in a time that does not scale with system size N . We discuss a holographic model of these codes in which the large code distance is a consequence of the emergence of a long wormhole geometry in a simple model of quantum gravity.
Quantum error correction (QEC) codes are fundamentally linked to quantum phases of matter: the degenerate ground state manifold corresponds to the code space, while topological excitations represent error syndromes. Building on this concept, the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model, characterized by its extensive quasi-ground state degeneracy, serves as a constant rate approximate QEC code. In this work, we study the impacts of decoherence on the information-theoretic capacity of SYK models and their variants. Such a capacity is closely tied to traversable wormholes via its thermofield double state, which theoretically enables the teleportation of information across a black hole. We calculate the coherent information in the maximally entangled quasi-ground state space of the SYK models under the fermion parity breaking and parity conserving noise. Interestingly, we find that under the strong fermion parity symmetric noise, the mixed state undergoes the strong to weak spontaneous symmetry breaking of fermion parity, which also corresponds to the information-theoretic transition. Our results highlight the degradation of wormhole traversability in realistic quantum scenarios, as well as providing critical insights into the behavior of approximate constant-rate QEC codes under decoherence.
Abstract We investigate two sparse Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) systems coupled by a bilinear term as a holographic quantum mechanical description of an eternal traversable wormhole in the low temperature limit. Each SYK system consists of N Majorana fermions coupled by random q-body interactions. The degree of sparseness is captured by a regular hypergraph in such a way that the Hamiltonian contains exactly k N independent terms. We improve on the theoretical understanding of the sparseness property by using known measures of hypergraph expansion. We show that the sparse version of the two coupled SYK model is gapped with a ground state close to a thermofield double state. Using Krylov subspace and parallelization techniques, we simulate the system for q = 4 and q = 8. The sparsity of the model allows us to explore larger values of N than the ones existing in the literature for the all-to-all SYK. We analyze in detail the two-point functions and the transmission amplitude of signals between the two systems. We identify a range of parameters where revivals obey the scaling predicted by holography and signals can be interpreted as traversing the wormhole.
We study some general properties of coupled quantum systems. We consider simple interactions between two copies of identical Hamiltonians such as the SYK model, Pauli spin chains with random magnetic field and harmonic oscillators. Such couplings make the ground states close to the thermofield double states of the uncoupled Hamiltonians. For the coupled SYK model, we push the numerical computation further towards the thermodynamic limit so that an extrapolation in the size of the system is possible. We find good agreement between the extrapolated numerical result and the analytic result in the large-q limit. We also consider the coupled gauged matrix model and vector model, and argue that the deconfinement is associated with the loss of the entanglement, similarly to the previous observation for the coupled SYK model. The understanding of the microscopic mechanism of the confinement/deconfinement transition enables us to estimate the quantum entanglement precisely, and backs up the dual gravity interpretation which relates the deconfinement to the disappearance of the wormhole. Our results demonstrate the importance of the entanglement between the color degrees of freedom in the emergence of the bulk geometry from quantum field theory via holography.
Abstract We study some general properties of coupled quantum systems. We consider simple interactions between two copies of identical Hamiltonians such as the SYK model, Pauli spin chains with random magnetic field and harmonic oscillators. Such couplings make the ground states close to the thermofield double states of the uncoupled Hamiltonians. For the coupled SYK model, we push the numerical computation further towards the thermodynamic limit so that an extrapolation in the size of the system is possible. We find good agreement between the extrapolated numerical result and the analytic result in the large-qlimit. We also consider the coupled gauged matrix model and vector model, and argue that the deconfinement is associated with the loss of the entanglement, similarly to the previous observation for the coupled SYK model. The understanding of the microscopic mechanism of the confinement/deconfinement transition enables us to estimate the quantum entanglement precisely, and backs up the dual gravity interpretation which relates the deconfinement to the disappearance of the wormhole. Our results demonstrate the importance of the entanglement between the color degrees of freedom in the emergence of the bulk geometry from quantum field theory via holography.
The holographic principle suggests that the low energy effective field theory of gravity, as used to describe perturbative quantum fields about some background has far too many states. It is then natural that any quantum error correcting code with such a quantum field theory as the code subspace is not isometric. We discuss how this framework can naturally arise in an algebraic QFT treatment of a family of CFT with a large-NNN limit described by the single trace sector. We show that an isometric code can be recovered in the N→∞N \rightarrow \inftyN→∞ limit when acting on fixed states in the code Hilbert space. Asymptotically isometric codes come equipped with the notion of simple operators and nets of causal wedges. While the causal wedges are additive, they need not satisfy Haag duality, thus leading to the possibility of non-trivial entanglement wedge reconstructions. Codes with complementary recovery are defined as having extensions to Haag dual nets, where entanglement wedges are well defined for all causal boundary regions. We prove an asymptotic version of the information disturbance trade-off theorem and use this to show that boundary theory causality is maintained by net extensions. We give a characterization of the existence of an entanglement wedge extension via the asymptotic equality of bulk and boundary relative entropy or modular flow. While these codes are asymptotically exact, at fixed NNN they can have large errors on states that do not survive the large-NNN limit. This allows us to fix well known issues that arise when modeling gravity as an exact codes, while maintaining the nice features expected of gravity, including, among other things, the emergence of non-trivial von Neumann algebras of various types.
Abstract In this paper, we develop a general effective theory for two copies of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model with a time-dependent bilinear coupling. For a quantum quench problem with an initial state of the thermofield double state, we show how the evolution of the system is described by a complex reparametrization field with a classical Hamiltonian. We study correlation functions in this system and compare the large-qtheory with the bulk low energy effective theory. In particular, we study the special case of a “rescued black hole”, which describes how a time-evolved thermofield double state can evolve to the ground state of a coupled SYK model by a carefully tuned time-dependent coupling. In the low energy region, there is a holographic dual interpretation, which is a geometry that crosses over from an eternal black hole to a global AdS2vacuum. This family of geometries allow us to access the bulk region that would be the black hole interior without the rescue process. By comparing the large-qand low energy theory, we find that even in the low energy region the deviation from the low energy theory cannot be neglected if the rescue process starts late. This provides evidence that the low energy effective theory of the bulk fails near the inner horizon of the black hole. We note the possibility of a connection to a two-dimensional analog of the higher-dimensional black hole singularity.