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arXiv:2406.05865 · Physical Review A

Information scrambling in quantum walks: Discrete-time formulation of Krylov complexity

Himanshu Sahu

Published Nov 4, 2024• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study information scrambling (a spread of initially localized quantum information into the system's many degree of freedom) in discrete-time quantum walks. We consider out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOC) and K complexity as a probe of information scrambling. The OTOC for local spin operators in all directions has a light-cone structure which is ``shell-like.'' As the wavefront passes, the OTOC approaches to zero in the long-time limit, showing no signature of scrambling. The introduction of spatial or temporal disorder changes the shape of the light-cone akin to localization of wavefuction. We formulate the K complexity in system with discrete-time evolution, and show that it grows linearly in discrete-time quantum walk. The presence of disorder modifies this growth to sublinear. Our study present interesting case to explore many-body phenomenon in a discrete-time quantum walk using scrambling.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.110.052405

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We study information scrambling (a spread of initially localized quantum information into the system's many degree of freedom) in discrete-time quantum walks. We consider out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOC) and K complexity as a probe of information scrambling. The OTOC for local spin operators in all directions has a light-cone structure which is ``shell-like.'' As the wavefront passes, the OTOC approaches to zero in the long-time limit, showing no signature of scrambling. The introduction of spatial or temporal disorder changes the shape of the light-cone akin to localization of wavefuction. We formulate the K complexity in system with discrete-time evolution, and show that it grows linearly in discrete-time quantum walk. The presence of disorder modifies this growth to sublinear. Our study present interesting case to explore many-body phenomenon in a discrete-time quantum walk using scrambling.
A closed quantum system never forgets its initial state, but the encoded information can get scrambled and become inaccessible without measuring a large fraction of all the system degrees of freedom. This scrambling can be diagnosed by studying the spatial spreading of initially local operators under the Heisenberg time evolution, and the decay of the out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOC). What insights can OTOCs provide to understand the dynamics of quantum many-body systems? What are the characteristic behaviors of OTOCs during the time evolution? How is information scrambling affected by the dissipation in open quantum many-body systems? We first study slow scrambling in many-body localized systems via calculating various correlators, two-point retarded correlators and OTOCs. Comparing with retarded correlators, OTOCs provide more information about the dynamics. We find that disorder slows and partially halts the onset of information scrambling. Instead of ballistic spreading, propagation of information forms a logarithmic light cone. Next, we study the finite-size scaling of OTOCs at late times in generic thermalizing quantum many-body systems. When energy is conserved, the late-time saturation value of the OTOC of generic traceless local operators scales as an inverse polynomial in the system size. This is in contrast to the inverse exponential scaling expected for chaotic dynamics without energy conservation. We also study information scrambling in open quantum many-body systems. We define a dissipative version of OTOC and study its behaviors in a prototypical chaotic quantum chain with dissipation. We find that dissipation leads to not only the overall decay of the scrambled information due to leaking, but also structural changes so that the information light cone can only reach a finite distance even when the effect of overall decay is removed. Finally, we construct a family of local Hamiltonians for understanding the asymmetric information scrambling. Our models live on a one-dimensional lattice and exhibit asymmetric butterfly light cone between the left and right spatial directions.
The study of information scrambling in many-body systems has sharpened our understanding of quantum chaos, complexity, and gravity. Here, we extend the framework for exploring information scrambling to infinite-dimensional continuous variable (CV) systems. Unlike their discrete variable cousins, continuous variable systems exhibit two complementary domains of information scrambling: (i) scrambling in the phase space of a single mode and (ii) scrambling across multiple modes of a many-body system. Moreover, for each of these domains, we identify two distinct types of scrambling; genuine scrambling, where an initial operator localized in phase space spreads out, and quasiscrambling, where a local ensemble of operators distorts but the overall phase space volume remains fixed. To characterize these behaviors, we introduce a CV out-of-time-order correlation (OTOC) function based upon displacement operators and offer a number of results regarding the CV analog for unitary designs. Finally, we investigate operator spreading and entanglement growth in random local Gaussian circuits; to explain the observed behavior, we propose a simple hydrodynamical model that relates the butterfly velocity, the growth exponent, and the diffusion constant. Experimental realizations of continuous variable scrambling as well as its characterization using CV OTOCs will be discussed.
How fast quantum information scrambles such that it becomes inaccessible by local probes turns out to be central to various fields. Motivated by recent works on spin systems with nonlocal interactions, we study information scrambling in different variants of the Ising model. Our work reveals that nonlocal interactions can induce operator dynamics not precisely captured by out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs). In particular, the operator size exhibits a slowdown in systems with generic power-law interactions despite a highly nonlinear light cone. A recently proposed microscopic model for fast scrambling does not show this slowdown, which uncovers a distinct analogy between a local operator under unitary evolution and the entanglement entropy following a quantum quench. Our work gives new insights on scrambling properties of systems in reach of current quantum simulation platforms and complements results on possibly observing features of quantum gravity in the laboratory.
Quantum many-body scarred systems host special nonthermal eigenstates that support periodic revival dynamics and weakly break the ergodicity. Here, we study the quantum information scrambling dynamics in quantum many-body scarred systems, with a focus on the ``PXP'' model. We use the out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC) and Holevo information as measures of the information scrambling and apply an efficient numerical method based on matrix product operators to compute them up to 41 spins. We find that both the OTOC and Holevo information exhibit a linear light cone and periodic oscillations inside the light cone for initial states within the scarred subspace, which is in sharp contrast to thermal or many-body localized systems. The periodic revivals of OTOCs and Holevo information signify unusual breakdown of quantum chaos and are not equivalent to the revival dynamics of state fidelity or local observables studied in the previous literature. To explain the formation of the linear light-cone structure, we provide a perturbation-type calculation based on a phenomenological model. In addition, we demonstrate that the OTOC and Holevo information dynamics of the PXP model can be measured using the Rydberg-atom quantum simulators with current experimental technologies and numerically identify the measurable signatures using experimental parameters.
Chaotic dynamics in closed local quantum systems scrambles quantum information, which is manifested quantitatively in the decay of the out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOC) of local operators. How is information scrambling affected when the system is coupled to the environment and suffers from dissipation? In this paper, we address this question by defining a dissipative version of OTOC and numerically study its behavior in a prototypical chaotic quantum chain in the presence of dissipation. We find that dissipation leads to not only the overall decay of the scrambled information due to leaking but also structural changes so that the `information light cone' can only reach a finite distance even when the effect of overall decay is removed. Based on this observation we conjecture a modified version of the Lieb-Robinson bound in dissipative systems.
Out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOC) have been proposed to characterize quantum chaos in generic systems. However, they can also show interesting behavior in integrable models, resembling the OTOC in chaotic systems in some aspects. Here we study the OTOC for different operators in the exactly-solvable one-dimensional quantum Ising spin chain. The OTOC for spin operators that are local in terms of the Jordan-Wigner fermions has a ``shell-like'' structure: After the wavefront passes, the OTOC approaches its original value in the long-time limit, showing no signature of scrambling; the approach is described by a ${t}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ power law at long time ttt. On the other hand, the OTOC for spin operators that are nonlocal in the Jordan-Wigner fermions has a ``ball-like'' structure, with its value reaching zero in the long-time limit, looking like a signature of scrambling; the approach to zero, however, is described by a slow power law ${t}^{\ensuremath{-}1/4}$ for the Ising model at the critical coupling. These long-time power-law behaviors in the lattice model are not captured by conformal field theory calculations. The mixed OTOC with both local and nonlocal operators in the Jordan-Wigner fermions also has a ``ball-like'' structure, but the limiting values and the decay behavior appear to be nonuniversal. In all cases, we are not able to define a parametrically large window around the wavefront to extract the Lyapunov exponent.