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arXiv:2410.00953 · Quantum

Monte Carlo Simulation of Operator Dynamics and Entanglement in Dual-Unitary Circuits

Menghan Song, Zhaoyi Zeng, Ting-Tung Wang, Yi‐Zhuang You, Zi Yang Meng, Pengfei Zhang

Published Apr 1, 2025• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

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.

DOI
10.22331/q-2025-04-01-1681

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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.
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 entanglement in operator space is a well established measure for the complexity of the quantum many-body dynamics. In particular, that of local operators has recently been proposed as dynamical chaos indicator, i.e. as a quantity able to discriminate between quantum systems with integrable and dynamics. For systems the local-operator entanglement is expected to grow linearly in time, while it is expected to grow at most logarithmically in the integrable case. Here we study local-operator entanglement in dual-unitary quantum circuits, a class of statistically solvable quantum circuits that we recently introduced. We identify a class of completely chaotic dual-unitary circuits where the local-operator entanglement grows linearly and we provide a conjecture for its asymptotic behaviour which is in excellent agreement with the numerical results. Interestingly, our conjecture also predicts a phase transition in the slope of the local-operator entanglement when varying the parameters of the circuits.
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.
Dual-unitary circuits are a class of locally interacting quantum many-body systems displaying unitary dynamics also when the roles of space and time are exchanged. These systems have recently emerged as a remarkable framework where certain features of many-body quantum chaos can be studied exactly. In particular, they admit a class of ``solvable'' initial states for which, in the thermodynamic limit, one can access the full nonequilibrium dynamics. This reveals a surprising property: when a dual-unitary circuit is prepared in a solvable state the quantum entanglement between two complementary spatial regions grows at the maximal speed allowed by the local structure of the evolution. Here we investigate the fate of this property when the system is prepared in a generic pair-product state. We show that in this case, the entanglement increment during a time step is submaximal for finite times, however, it approaches the maximal value in the infinite-time limit. This statement is proven rigorously for dual-unitary circuits generating high enough entanglement, while it is argued to hold for the entire class.
Temporal entanglement (TE) of an influence matrix (IM) has been proposed as a measure of complexity of simulating dynamics of local observables in a many-body system. Foligno et al. [Phys. Rev. X 13, 041008 (2023)] recently argued that the TE in chaotic 1d quantum circuits obeys linear (volume-law) scaling with evolution time. To reconcile this apparent high complexity of IM with the rapid thermalization of local observables, here we study the relation between TE, non-Markovianity, and local temporal correlations for chaotic quantum baths. By exactly solving a random-unitary bath model, and bounding distillable entanglement between future and past degrees of freedom, we identify a regime where TE is extensive and reflects genuine non-Markovianity. This memory, however, is entirely contained in highly complex temporal correlations, and its effect on few-point temporal correlators is negligible. An IM coarse-graining procedure, reducing the allowed frequency of measurements of the probe system, results in a transition from volume- to {subvolume- (area or logarithmic)} law TE scaling. We demonstrate the generality of this TE transition in 1d circuits by analyzing the kicked Ising model analytically at dual-unitary points, as well as numerically away from them. This finding indicates that dynamics of local observables are fully captured by a subvolume-law IM. We provide evidence that the compact IM MPS obtained via standard compression algorithms accurately describes local~evolution.
The entanglement in operator space is a well established measure for the complexity of quantum many-body dynamics. In particular, that of local operators has recently been proposed as dynamical chaos indicator, i.e. as a quantity able to discriminate between quantum systems with integrable and chaotic dynamics. For chaotic systems the local-operator entanglement is expected to grow linearly in time, while it is expected to grow at most logarithmically in the integrable case. Here we study the dynamics of local-operator entanglement in dual-unitary quantum circuits, a class of "statistically solvable" quantum circuits that we recently introduced. We identify a class of ``completely chaotic" dual-unitary circuits where the local-operator entanglement grows linearly and we provide a conjecture for its asymptotic behaviour which is in excellent agreement with the numerical results. Interestingly, our conjecture also predicts a ``phase transition" in the slope of the local-operator entanglement when varying the parameters of the circuits.