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arXiv:2411.12683 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Disentangling critical quantum spin chains with Clifford circuits

Chaohui Fan, Xiangjian Qian, Hua-Chen Zhang, Rui-Zhen Huang, Mingpu Qin, Tao Xiang

Published Feb 10, 2025• 12 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Clifford circuits can be utilized to disentangle quantum states with polynomial cost, thanks to the Gottesman-Knill theorem. Based on this idea, the Clifford Circuits Augmented Matrix Product States (CAMPS) method, which is a seamless integration of Clifford circuits within the density-matrix renormalization group algorithm, was proposed recently and was shown to be able to reduce entanglement in various quantum systems. In this work, we further explore the power of the CAMPS method in critical spin chains described by conformal field theories (CFTs) in the scaling limit. We find that the optimized disentanglers correspond to duality transformations, which significantly reduce the entanglement entropy in the ground state. For the critical quantum Ising spin chain governed by the Ising CFT with self-duality, the Clifford circuits found by CAMPS coincide with the duality transformation, i.e., the Kramer-Wannier self-duality in the critical Ising chain. It reduces the entanglement entropy by mapping the free conformal boundary condition to the fixed one. In the more general case of the XXZ chain, the CAMPS gives rise to a duality transformation mapping the model to the quantum Ashkin-Teller spin chain. Our results highlight the potential of the framework as a versatile tool for uncovering hidden dualities and simplifying the entanglement structure of critical quantum systems.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.111.085121

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Clifford circuits can be utilized to disentangle quantum states with polynomial cost, thanks to the Gottesman-Knill theorem. Based on this idea, the Clifford Circuits Augmented Matrix Product States (CAMPS) method, which is a seamless integration of Clifford circuits within the density-matrix renormalization group algorithm, was proposed recently and was shown to be able to reduce entanglement in various quantum systems. In this work, we further explore the power of the CAMPS method in critical spin chains described by conformal field theories (CFTs) in the scaling limit. We find that the optimized disentanglers correspond to duality transformations, which significantly reduce the entanglement entropy in the ground state. For the critical quantum Ising spin chain governed by the Ising CFT with self-duality, the Clifford circuits found by CAMPS coincide with the duality transformation, i.e., the Kramer-Wannier self-duality in the critical Ising chain. It reduces the entanglement entropy by mapping the free conformal boundary condition to the fixed one. In the more general case of the XXZ chain, the CAMPS gives rise to a duality transformation mapping the model to the quantum Ashkin-Teller spin chain. Our results highlight the potential of the framework as a versatile tool for uncovering hidden dualities and simplifying the entanglement structure of critical quantum systems.
Disentangling transformations play a central role in the classical simulation of quantum many-body systems, yet their analytic structure and underlying mechanism remain largely unexplored. Here, we study the structure of the disentangler in the Haldane phase of spin-1 systems using generalized Clifford circuits. To this end, we extend the Clifford-circuit-augmented matrix product states (CAMPS)-based density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method to spin-1 systems. Within this framework, we find that the local disentanglers optimized for the Haldane phase implement the generalized Kramers--Wannier (KW) transformation, and we analytically verify its optimality for the Affleck--Kennedy--Lieb--Tasaki (AKLT) state. Beyond reducing entanglement, the KW transformation maps the Haldane phase to a phase with spontaneously broken Z2\mathbb{Z}_{2}Z2​ symmetry. This mapping is distinct from the Kennedy--Tasaki transformation and provides a new unitary route from symmetry-protected topological order to symmetry breaking.
In this work, we investigate the Kitaev honeycomb model employing the recently developed Clifford Circuits Augmented Matrix Product States (CAMPS) method. While the model in the gapped phase is known to reduce to the toric code model - whose ground state is entirely constructible from Clifford circuits - we demonstrate that the very different gapless quantum spin liquid (QSL) phase can also be significantly disentangled with Clifford circuits. Specifically, CAMPS simulations reveal that approximately two-thirds of the entanglement entropy in the isotropic point arises from Clifford-circuit contributions, enabling dramatically more efficient computations compared to conventional matrix product state (MPS) methods. Crucially, this finding implies that the Kitaev QSL state retains significant Clifford-simulatable structure, even in the gapless phase with non-abelian anyon excitations when time reversal symmetry is broken. This property not only enhances classical simulation efficiency significantly but also suggests substantial resource reduction for preparing such states on quantum devices. As an application, we leverage CAMPS to study the Kitaev-Heisenberg model and determine the most accurate phase boundary between the anti-ferromagnetic phase and the Kitaev QSL phase in the model. Our results highlight how Clifford circuits can effectively disentangle the intricate entanglement of Kitaev QSLs, opening avenues for efficiently simulating related and similar strongly correlated models.
Clifford circuits augmented matrix product states (CAMPS) was recently proposed to leverage the advantages of both Clifford circuits and matrix product states (MPS). Clifford circuits can support large entanglement and can be efficiently simulated classically according to the Gottesman-Knill theorem. So in CAMPS, MPS needs only to handle the so-called nonstabilizerness entanglement entropy which significantly improves the simulation accuracy for a given bond dimension. In this work, we generalize CAMPS to study the fermion system by taking advantage of the Jordan-Wigner transformation which can map the studied fermion system to a spin system. We benchmark the method on both the spinless $t\text{\ensuremath{-}}V$ model and the spinful Hubbard model. Our test results show significant improvement of the accuracy of CAMPS over MPS, especially when the interactions are strong. Fermionic CAMPS provides a useful tool for the accurate study of many-body fermion systems in the future and has the potential to help resolve long-standing issues.
Determining the quantum-classical boundary between quantum circuits that can be efficiently simulated classically and those that cannot remains a fundamental question. One approach to classical simulation is to represent the output of a quantum circuit as a Clifford-augmented matrix product state (CAMPS), which, via a disentangling algorithm, decomposes the wave function into Clifford and MPS components, and from which Pauli expectation values can be computed in time polynomial in the MPS bond dimension. In this work, we develop an optimization-free disentangling (OFD) algorithm for Clifford circuits either doped with T gates or, equivalently, preceded by multiqubit gates of the form α I + β P . We give a simple and easily computed algebraic criterion that characterizes the individual quantum circuits for which OFD generates an efficient CAMPS—the bond dimension is exponential in the null space of a Galois binary field GF(2) matrix induced by a tableau of the twisted Pauli strings P . This significantly increases the number of circuits with rigorous polynomial-time classical simulations. We also give evidence that the typical N qubit random Clifford circuit doped with N uniformly distributed T gates of polylogarithmic depth or greater has a CAMPS with polynomial bond dimension. In addition, we compare OFD against disentangling by optimization. We further explore the representability of CAMPS for random Clifford circuits doped with more than N T gates. We also propose algorithms for sampling, probability, and amplitude estimation of bitstrings, and evaluation of entanglement Rényi entropy from CAMPS, which, though still having exponential complexity, are more efficient than standard MPS simulations. This work establishes a versatile framework for understanding classical simulatability of Clifford + T circuits and explores the interplay between quantum entanglement and quantum magic in quantum systems.
The recently proposed Clifford circuits augmented matrix product states (CA-MPSs) [X. Qian, J. Huang, and M. Qin, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 190402 (2024)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.133.190402] seamlessly augment density matrix renormalization groups with Clifford circuits. In CA-MPSs, the entanglement from stabilizers is transferred to the Clifford circuits, which can be easily handled according to the Gottesman-Knill theorem. As a result, an MPS needs only to deal with the nonstabilizer entanglement, which largely reduces the bond dimension and the resource required for the accurate simulation of many-body systems. In this Letter, we generalize CA-MPSs to the framework of the time-dependent variational principle (TDVP) for time evolution simulations. In this method, we apply Clifford circuits to the resulting MPS in each TDVP step with a two-site sweeping process similar as in density matrix renormalization groups, aiming at reducing the entanglement entropy in the MPS, and the Hamiltonian is transformed accordingly using the chosen Clifford circuits. Similar as in CA-MPSs, the Clifford circuits does not increase the number of terms in the Hamiltonian, which makes the overhead very small in the new method. We test this method in XXZ chain, 2D Heisenberg model, and Kitaev honeycomb model. The results show that the Clifford circuits augmented TDVP method can reduce the entanglement entropy in the time evolution process and hence makes the simulation reliable for a longer time. The Clifford circuits augmented time-dependent variational principle provides a useful tool for the simulation of the time evolution process of many-body systems in the future.
Entanglement is a key bottleneck limiting the efficiency of tensor-network and quantum simulations of molecular electronic structures. Here, we systematically assess and extend Clifford disentanglers as a structure-preserving approach to entanglement reduction: they can modify the entanglement structure of qubit wavefunctions while retaining the Pauli-string form of qubit Hamiltonians. To enable a practical search over Clifford transformations, we classify Clifford operators by their action on the Schmidt spectrum across a bipartition, reducing the two- and four-qubit search spaces to 20 and 91392 representatives, respectively. Embedded in an iterative Clifford-augmented matrix product state framework, these transformations reduce the energy errors at fixed bond dimension for the molecular test cases studied and mitigate the dependence on orbital orderings and fermion-to-qubit mappings. We further show that Clifford disentanglers can also benefit quantum simulations such as the shallow-circuit variational quantum eigensolver calculations. Together, these results establish Clifford disentanglers as a useful structure-preserving entanglement-engineering tool for tensor-network and quantum simulations of molecular electronic structure, while also clarifying their correlation dependence and motivating future developments.