Classical and quantum states can be distinguished by entanglement entropy, which can be viewed as a measure of quantum resources. Entanglement entropy also plays a pivotal role in understanding computational complexity in simulating quantum systems. However, stabilizer states formed solely by Clifford gates can be efficiently simulated with the tableau algorithm according to the Gottesman-Knill theorem, although they can host large entanglement entropy. In this work, we introduce the concept of non-stabilizerness entanglement entropy which is basically the minimum residual entanglement entropy for a quantum state by excluding the contribution from Clifford circuits. It can serve as a new practical and better measure of difficulty in the classical simulation of quantum many-body systems. We discuss why it is a better criterion than previously proposed metrics such as Stabilizer Rényi Entropy. We also show numerical results of non-stabilizerness entanglement entropy with concrete quantum many-body models. The concept of non-stabilizerness entanglement entropy expands our understanding of the ``hardness`` in the classical simulation of quantum many-body systems.
Classical and quantum states can be distinguished by entanglement entropy, which can be viewed as a measure of quantum resources. Entanglement entropy also plays a pivotal role in understanding computational complexity in simulating quantum systems. However, stabilizer states formed solely by Clifford gates can be efficiently simulated with the tableau algorithm according to the Gottesman-Knill theorem, although they can host large entanglement entropy. In this work, we introduce the concept of non-stabilizerness entanglement entropy which is basically the minimum residual entanglement entropy for a quantum state by excluding the contribution from Clifford circuits. It can serve as a new practical and better measure of difficulty in the classical simulation of quantum many-body systems. We discuss why it is a better criterion than previously proposed metrics such as Stabilizer Rényi Entropy. We also show numerical results of non-stabilizerness entanglement entropy with concrete quantum many-body models. The concept of non-stabilizerness entanglement entropy expands our understanding of the hardness in the classical simulation of quantum many-body systems.
Entanglement and non-stabilizerness are complementary resources underlying the complexity of quantum states, yet extracting either quantity from large quantum circuits generally requires exponentially scaling resources. In diagrammatic approaches to quantum computation, such as the ZX-calculus, both quantities likewise typically require expensive tensor contractions that are not native to graphical rewriting. Here we show that both entanglement and magic can be efficiently estimated directly from ZX-diagrams. Flow enables efficient extraction of a normal form separating a potentially extensively entangled graph-state backbone from non-Clifford Pauli gadgets. This structure yields additive upper and lower bounds on bipartite entanglement entropy, which we further tighten through a preprocessing procedure that removes or merges redundant non-Clifford contributions. The same normal form gives an upper bound on logarithmic stabilizer extent. We benchmark these methods in random unitary and monitored circuits, and a circuit combining Trotterized Hamiltonian evolution with Clifford layers, finding that the resulting bounds remain informative even at large qubit numbers, circuit depths, and internal spider counts. Our results provide scalable probes of entanglement and non-stabilizerness of ZX-diagrams and establish a bridge between ZX-calculus and quantum many-body resource characterization, with applications across quantum computing, quantum information, and condensed-matter physics.
We advance the characterization of complexity in quantum many-body systems by examining W W -states embedded in a spin chain. Such states show an amount of non-stabilizerness or “magic”, measured as the Stabilizer Rényi Entropy, that grows logarithmically with the number of qubits/spins. We focus on systems whose Hamiltonian admits a classical point with extensive degeneracy. Near these points, a Clifford circuit can convert the ground state into a W W -state, while in the rest of the phase to which the classical point belongs, it is dressed with local quantum correlations. Topological frustrated quantum spin-chains host phases with the desired phenomenology, and we show that their ground state’s Stabilizer Rényi Entropy is the sum of that of the W W -states plus an extensive local contribution. Our work reveals that W W -states/frustrated ground states display a non-local degree of complexity that can be harvested as a quantum resource and has no counterpart in GHZ states/non-frustrated systems.
Stabilizer states constitute an important class of quantum states that can be generated from computational-basis states using Pauli operators and Clifford gates. Although they may exhibit substantial multipartite entanglement, quantum circuits restricted to stabilizer operations can be efficiently simulated classically and therefore cannot, by themselves, provide a quantum computational advantage. Such an advantage requires non-stabilizer resources, commonly referred to as quantum magic. In this paper, we investigate the non-stabilizerness of quantum states arising in a class of spin Hamiltonians by computing their stabilizer Rényi entropies. Using real-space renormalization-group techniques, we obtain a closed-form expression valid in the low-energy, large-distance regime. We analyze how quantum magic evolves under coarse-graining and explore its behavior across different parameter regimes and quantum phases.
The stabilizer Rényi entropy is a quantitative measure of non-stabilizerness, or magic, and has typically been found to scale extensively with system size N (i.e., Θ(N)) for a variety of many-body quantum states. In this note, we study the stabilizer Rényi entropy of the ground state of the spin-21 Dyck-Fredkin chain and its t-deformation, a local frustration-free model with unusual spectral-gap scaling. Exploiting the combinatorial structure, we carry out numerically exact finite-size calculations, which indicate asymptotic behavior depending on t: Θ(N) for t<1, Θ(logN) at t=1, and Θ(1) for t>1. The scaling at t=1 could be another manifestation of the unconventional criticality of the model, while the contrast with the behavior of the entanglement entropy suggests that non-stabilizerness might provide a new window into quantum many-body systems.
Quantifying non-stabilizerness in mixed states is provably intractable, as any strict monotone requires superexponential time. We propose a linear Stabilizer Entropy that acts as a proper non-stabilizerness monotone with overwhelming probability when restricted to non-adaptive Clifford channels acting on flat mixed stabilizer states. Analytical and numerical results for Haar-random states, Clifford orbits, and random matrix product states show that monotonicity violation probabilities decay as exp−ηN. We also prove the validity of Stabilizer Entropy in specific many-body systems undergoing partial measurements, where the amount of resource never increases for each measurement outcome as well as when averaged over outcome probabilities. Given the hardness of strict alternatives, Stabilizer Entropy emerges as a practical and theoretically justified resource measure.
We introduce an efficient method to quantify nonstabilizerness in fermionic Gaussian states, overcoming the long-standing challenge posed by their extensive entanglement. Using a perfect sampling scheme based on an underlying determinantal point process, we compute the Stabilizer Renyi Entropies (SREs) for systems with hundreds of qubits. Benchmarking on random Gaussian states with and without particle conservation, we reveal an extensive leading behavior equal to that of Haar random states, with logarithmic subleading corrections. We support these findings with analytical calculations for a set of related quantities, the participation entropies in the computational (or Fock) basis, for which we derive an exact formula. We also investigate the time evolution of non-stabilizerness in a random unitary circuit with Gaussian gates, observing that it converges in a time that scales logarithmically with the system size. Applying the sampling algorithm to a two-dimensional free-fermionic topological model, we uncover a sharp transition in non-stabilizerness at the phase boundaries, highlighting the power of our approach in exploring different phases of quantum many-body systems, even in higher dimensions.