Operator entanglement is a well-established measure of operator complexity across a system bipartition. In this work, we introduce a measure of the ability of a unitary channel to generate operator entanglement, representing an operator-level generalization of the state-space entangling power. This operator space entangling power is demonstrated to be linked to the scrambling properties of the unitary channel via the recently introduced concept of mutual averaged noncommutativity of quantum operator algebras. An upper bound for the operator space entangling power is identified that corresponds to unitary channels with scrambling properties akin to those of typical unitaries. Additionally, for Hamiltonian dynamics, we find that the short-time growth rate of the operator space entangling power matches the Gaussian scrambling rate of the bipartite out-of-time-order correlator, establishing a direct link between information scrambling and operator entanglement generation for short timescales. Finally, we examine the average growth of local operator entanglement across a symmetric bipartition of a spin chain. For dual-unitary circuits, a combination of analytical and numerical investigations demonstrates that the average growth of local operator entanglement exhibits two distinct regimes in relation to the operator space entangling power of the building-block gate.
The dynamics of quantum many-body systems in the chaotic regime are of particular interest due to the associated phenomena of information scrambling and entanglement generation within the system. While these systems are typically intractable using traditional numerical methods, an effective framework can be implemented based on dual-unitary circuits which have emerged as a minimal model for maximally chaotic dynamics. In this work, we investigate how individual two-body operators influence the global dynamics of circuits composed of dual-unitaries. We study their effect on entanglement generation while examining it from both bipartite and multipartite perspectives. Here we also highlight the significant role of local unitaries in the dynamics when paired with operators from the dual-unitary class, showing that systems with identical entangling power can exhibit a range of differing entanglement growth rates. Furthermore, we present calculations establishing time-step-dependent lower bounds, which depend on both the initial state and the entangling power of the constituent operators. Finally, we find that time-evolving an initial state composed of pair products generates a state with nearly maximal multipartite entanglement content, approaching the bounds established by Absolutely Maximally Entangled (AME) states.
Nonstabilizerness is a quantum property of states associated with the non-Clifford resources required for their preparation. As a resource, nonstabilizerness complements entanglement, and the interplay between these two concepts has garnered significant attention in recent years. In this work, we establish an exact correspondence between the generation of nonlocal nonstabilizerness and operator entanglement under unitary evolutions. Nonlocal nonstabilizerness refers to nonstabilizerness that cannot be erased via local operations, while operator entanglement generalizes entanglement to operator space, characterizing the complexity of operators across a bipartition. Specifically, we prove that a unitary map generates nonlocal nonstabilizerness if and only if it generates operator entanglement on Pauli strings. Guided by this result, we introduce an average measure of a unitary's Pauli-entangling power, serving as a proxy for nonlocal nonstabilizerness generation. We derive analytical formulas for this measure and examine its properties, including its typical value and upper bounds in terms of the nonstabilizerness properties of the evolution.
In quantum many-body systems, complex dynamics delocalize the physical degrees of freedom. This spreading of information throughout the system has been extensively studied in relation to quantum thermalization, scrambling, and chaos. Locality is typically defined with respect to a tensor product structure (TPS) which identifies the local subsystems of the quantum system. In this paper, we investigate a simple geometric measure of operator spreading by quantifying the distance of the space of local operators from itself evolved under a unitary channel. We show that this TPS distance is related to the scrambling properties of the dynamics between the local subsystems and coincides with the entangling power of the dynamics in the case of a symmetric bipartition. Additionally, we provide sufficient conditions for the maximization of the TPS distance and show that the class of 2-unitaries provides examples of dynamics that achieve this maximal value. For Hamiltonian evolutions at short times, the characteristic timescale of the TPS distance depends on scrambling rates determined by the strength of interactions between the local subsystems. Beyond this short-time regime, the behavior of the TPS distance is explored through numerical simulations of prototypical models exhibiting distinct ergodic properties, ranging from quantum chaos and integrability to Hilbert space fragmentation and localization.
We investigate operator dynamics and entanglement growth in dual-unitary circuits, a class of locally scrambled quantum systems that enables efficient simulation beyond the exponential complexity of the Hilbert space. By mapping the operator evolution to a classical Markov process, we perform Monte Carlo simulations to access the time evolution of local operator density and entanglement with polynomial computational cost. Our results reveal that the operator density converges exponentially to a steady-state value, with analytical bounds that match our simulations. Additionally, we observe a volume-law scaling of operator entanglement across different subregions, and identify a critical transition from maximal to sub-maximal entanglement growth, governed by the circuit’s gate parameter. This transition, confirmed by both mean-field theory and Monte Carlo simulations, provides new insights into operator entanglement dynamics in quantum many-body systems. Our work offers a scalable computational framework for studying long-time operator evolution and entanglement, paving the way for deeper exploration of quantum information dynamics.
Abstract We study the dynamical properties of a strongly scrambling quantum circuit involving a projective measurement on a finite-sized region by studying the operator entanglement entropy and mutual information (OEE and BOMI) of the dual operator state that corresponds to this quantum circuit. The time-dependence of the OEE exhibits a new dynamical behavior of operator entanglement, namely an additional fractional coefficient that accompanies the linear time growth of the OEE. For a holographic system, this is equivalent to an additional fractional coefficient that modifies the linear growth rate of the wormhole volume. The time-dependence of the BOMI shows that the projective measurement may destroy the non-local correlations in this dual state. We also propose a gravity dual as well as a line-tension picture, which is an effective model, that describe this strongly scrambling quantum circuit.
The entangling power of a unitary operator acting on a bipartite Hilbert space measures the entanglement it generates from product states, averaged over the inputs. A finite-dimensional unitary has a spectral decomposition
U=∑a=1neiθaPa, where
eiθa are the eigenvalues,
Pa the corresponding eigen-projectors, and
n is the number of distinct eigenvalues. After removing an overall phase, the entangling power is a function on the
(n−1)-torus of relative eigenphases at fixed spectral projectors. We prove that this function is stationary at all
2n−1 points on the torus where every relative phase is
0 or
π, which we define as \textit{corners}. Up to an overall phase,
U at each corner is a generalized reflection
R=I−2Q satisfying
R2=I, where
Q is the sum of spectral projectors whose relative phase is
π. At the corner the entangling power is expressed in terms of seven local-unitary invariants of
Q. A unitary gate
U can be realized as a corner of some projector family if and only if
U2∝I, a condition satisfied by many Clifford and non-Clifford gates. We illustrate the theorem with two-qubit gates,
SU(N) channel decompositions, and two-site spin chains, obtaining examples of minima, maxima, and saddle points. In addition, a corner that is a saddle point on the full phase torus can appear as a local maximum or minimum along different time-evolution trajectories.