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arXiv:2312.00611 · New Journal of Physics

Wehrl entropy and entanglement complexity of quantum spin systems

Xu Chen, Yiqi Yu, Peng Zhang

Published Dec 1, 2024• 4 citations

Abstract

Abstract The Wehrl entropy of a quantum state is the Shannon entropy of its coherent-state distribution function, and remains non-zero even for pure states. We investigate the relationship between this entropy and the many-particle quantum entanglement, for N spin-1/2 particles. Explicitly, we numerically calculate the Wehrl entropy of various N-particle ( 2 ⩽ N ⩽ 20 ) entangled pure states, with respect to the SU(2) ⊗ N coherent states. Our results show that for the large-N ( N ≳ 10 ) systems the Wehrl entropy of the highly chaotic entangled states (e.g. 2 − N / 2 ∑ s 1 , s 2 , … , s N =↑ , ↓ | s 1 , s 2 , … , s N ⟩ e − i ϕ s 1 , s 2 , … , s N , with ϕ s 1 , s 2 , … , s N being random angles) are substantially larger than that of the very regular entangled states (e.g. the Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger state). Therefore, the Wehrl entropy can reflect the complexity of the quantum entanglement of many-body pure states, as proposed by Sugita (2003 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 36 9081). In particular, the Wehrl entropy per particle (WEPP) can be used as a quantitative description of this entanglement complexity. Unlike other quantities used to evaluate this complexity (e.g. the degree of entanglement between a subsystem and the other particles), the WEPP does not necessitate the division of the total system into two subsystems. We further demonstrate that many-body pure entangled states can be classified into three types, based on the behavior of the WEPP in the limit N → ∞ : states approaching that of a maximally mixed state

DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/ada1f1

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Abstract The Wehrl entropy of a quantum state is the Shannon entropy of its coherent-state distribution function, and remains non-zero even for pure states. We investigate the relationship between this entropy and the many-particle quantum entanglement, for N spin-1/2 particles. Explicitly, we numerically calculate the Wehrl entropy of various N-particle ( 2 ⩽ N ⩽ 20 ) entangled pure states, with respect to the SU(2) ⊗ N coherent states. Our results show that for the large-N ( N ≳ 10 ) systems the Wehrl entropy of the highly chaotic entangled states (e.g. 2 − N / 2 ∑ s 1 , s 2 , … , s N =↑ , ↓ | s 1 , s 2 , … , s N ⟩ e − i ϕ s 1 , s 2 , … , s N , with ϕ s 1 , s 2 , … , s N being random angles) are substantially larger than that of the very regular entangled states (e.g. the Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger state). Therefore, the Wehrl entropy can reflect the complexity of the quantum entanglement of many-body pure states, as proposed by Sugita (2003 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 36 9081). In particular, the Wehrl entropy per particle (WEPP) can be used as a quantitative description of this entanglement complexity. Unlike other quantities used to evaluate this complexity (e.g. the degree of entanglement between a subsystem and the other particles), the WEPP does not necessitate the division of the total system into two subsystems. We further demonstrate that many-body pure entangled states can be classified into three types, based on the behavior of the WEPP in the limit N → ∞ : states approaching that of a maximally mixed state

We study the effect that the SU(2) symmetry, and the rich Hilbert space structure that it generates in lattice spin systems, has on the average entanglement entropy of highly excited eigenstates of local Hamiltonians and of random pure states. Focusing on the zero total magnetization sector

({J}_{z}=0)

for different fixed total spin

J

, we argue that the average entanglement entropy of highly excited eigenstates of quantum-chaotic Hamiltonians and of random pure states has a leading volume-law term whose coefficient

{s}_{A}

depends on the spin density

j=J/(\mathfrak{j}L)

, with ${s}_{A}(j\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0)=ln(2\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathfrak{j}+1)$ and ${s}_{A}(j\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1)=0$, where

\mathfrak{j}

is the microscopic spin. We provide numerical evidence that

{s}_{A}

is smaller in highly excited eigenstates of integrable interacting Hamiltonians, which lends support to the expectation that the average eigenstate entanglement entropy can be used as a diagnostic of quantum chaos and integrability for Hamiltonians with non-Abelian symmetries. In the context of Hamiltonian eigenstates we consider spins

\mathfrak{j}=\frac{1}{2}

and 1, while for our calculations based on random pure states we focus on the spin

\mathfrak{j}=\frac{1}{2}

case.

We analyze the problem of quantifying entanglement in pure and mixed states of fermionic systems with a fixed number parity yet not necessarily a fixed particle number. The mode entanglement between one single-particle level and its orthogonal complement is first considered, and an entanglement entropy for such a partition of a particular basis of the single-particle Hilbert space

\mathcal{H}

is defined. The sum over all single-particle modes of this entropy is introduced as a measure of the total entanglement of the system with respect to the chosen basis and it is shown that its minimum over all bases of

\mathcal{H}

is a function of the one-body density matrix. Furthermore, we show that if minimization is extended to all bases related through a Bogoliubov transformation, then the entanglement entropy is a function of the generalized one-body density matrix. These results are then used to quantify entanglement in fermion systems with four single-particle levels. For general pure states of such a system a closed expression for the fermionic concurrence is derived, which generalizes the Slater correlation measure defined by J. Schliemann et al. [Phys. Rev. A 64, 022303 (2001)], implying that particle entanglement may be seen as minimum mode entanglement. It is also shown that the entanglement entropy defined before is related to this concurrence by an expression analogous to that in the two-qubit case. For mixed states of this system the convex roof extension of the previous concurrence and entanglement entropy is evaluated analytically, extending the results in previous reference to general states.

In quantum statistical mechanics, it is of fundamental interest to understand how close the bipartite entanglement entropy of eigenstates of quantum chaotic Hamiltonians is to maximal. For random pure states in the Hilbert space, the average entanglement entropy is known to be nearly maximal, with a deviation that is, at most, a constant. Here we prove that, in a system that is away from half filling and divided in two equal halves, an upper bound for the average entanglement entropy of random pure states with a fixed particle number and normally distributed real coefficients exhibits a deviation from the maximal value that grows with the square root of the volume of the system. Exact numerical results for highly excited eigenstates of a particle number conserving quantum chaotic model indicate that the bound is saturated with increasing system size.

We calculate the typical bipartite entanglement entropy ${\ensuremath{\langle}{S}_{A}\ensuremath{\rangle}}_{N}$ in systems containing indistinguishable particles of any kind as a function of the total particle number

N

, the volume

V

, and the subsystem fraction

f={V}_{A}/V

, where

{V}_{A}

is the volume of the subsystem. We expand our result as a power series ${\ensuremath{\langle}{S}_{A}\ensuremath{\rangle}}_{N}=afV+b\sqrt{V}+c+o(1)$, and find that

c

is universal (i.e., independent of the system type), while

a

and

b

can be obtained from a generating function characterizing the local Hilbert space dimension. We illustrate the generality of our findings by studying a wide range of different systems, e.g., bosons, fermions, spins, and mixtures thereof. We provide evidence that our analytical results describe the entanglement entropy of highly excited eigenstates of quantum-chaotic spin and boson systems, which is distinct from that of integrable counterparts.

Abstract We investigate the Shannon entropy of the total system and its subsystems, as well as the subsystem Shannon mutual information, in quasiparticle excited states of free bosonic and fermionic chains and the ferromagnetic phase of the spin-1/2 XXX chain. For single-particle and double-particle states, we derive various analytical formulas for free bosonic and fermionic chains in the scaling limit. These formulas are also applicable to certain magnon excited states in the XXX chain in the scaling limit. We also calculate numerically the Shannon entropy and mutual information for triple-particle and quadruple-particle states in bosonic, fermionic, and XXX chains. We discover that Shannon entropy, unlike entanglement entropy, typically does not separate for quasiparticles with large momentum differences. Moreover, in the limit of large momentum difference, we obtain universal quantum bosonic and fermionic results that are generally distinct and cannot be explained by a semiclassical picture.

We consider the problem of the stability (with sharp exponent) of the Lieb--Solovej inequality for symmetric

SU(N)

coherent states, which was obtained only recently by the authors. Here, we propose an elementary proof of this result, based on reformulating the Wehrl-type entropy as a function defined on the unit sphere in

\mathbb{C}^d

, for some suitable

d

, and on some explicit (and somewhat surprising) computations.