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arXiv:2502.17551 · Physical review. D/Physical review. D.

Emergent hydrodynamic mode on SU(2) plaquette chains and quantum simulation

Francesco Turro, Xiaojun Yao

Published May 5, 2025• 12 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We search for emergent hydrodynamic modes in real-time Hamiltonian dynamics of 2 + 1 -dimensional SU(2) lattice gauge theory on a quasi-one-dimensional plaquette chain, by numerically computing symmetric correlation functions of energy densities on lattice sizes of about 20 with the local Hilbert space truncated at j max = 1 2 . Because of the Umklapp processes, we only find a mode for energy diffusion. The symmetric correlator exhibits transport peak near zero frequency with a width approximately proportional to momentum squared at small momentum, when the system is fully quantum ergodic, as indicated by the eigenenergy level statistics. This transport peak leads to a power-law t − 1 2 decay of the symmetric correlator at late time, also known as the long-time tail, as well as diffusionlike spreading in position space. We also introduce a quantum algorithm for computing the symmetric correlator on a quantum computer and find it gives results consistent with exact diagonalization when tested on the IBM emulator. Finally we discuss the future prospect of searching for the sound modes.

DOI
10.1103/physrevd.111.094502

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We search for emergent hydrodynamic modes in real-time Hamiltonian dynamics of 2 + 1 -dimensional SU(2) lattice gauge theory on a quasi-one-dimensional plaquette chain, by numerically computing symmetric correlation functions of energy densities on lattice sizes of about 20 with the local Hilbert space truncated at j max = 1 2 . Because of the Umklapp processes, we only find a mode for energy diffusion. The symmetric correlator exhibits transport peak near zero frequency with a width approximately proportional to momentum squared at small momentum, when the system is fully quantum ergodic, as indicated by the eigenenergy level statistics. This transport peak leads to a power-law t − 1 2 decay of the symmetric correlator at late time, also known as the long-time tail, as well as diffusionlike spreading in position space. We also introduce a quantum algorithm for computing the symmetric correlator on a quantum computer and find it gives results consistent with exact diagonalization when tested on the IBM emulator. Finally we discuss the future prospect of searching for the sound modes.
We calculate the real-time symmetric correlation function of the stress-energy tensor for a near-integrable Ising field theory consisting of three stable scalar particles via lattice Hamiltonian simulation. Using classical exact diagonalization and the matrix product state tensor network methods, we find that in the scaling region of the lattice theory, Umklapp processes that break continuum momentum conservation are suppressed and the sound modes of relativistic hydrodynamics emerge at long wavelength and late time in non-equilibrium dynamics. The extracted ratio of bulk viscosity to entropy density is ζ/s=3.06±0.68ζ/s=3.06\pm 0.68ζ/s=3.06±0.68 and the speed of sound is cs/c=0.76±0.02c_s/c=0.76 \pm 0.02cs​/c=0.76±0.02 at the temperature T≈7.14T\approx 7.14T≈7.14 in units of the lowest stable particle's mass. Our study demonstrates the utility of real-time lattice Hamiltonian simulation for describing hydrodynamization and calculating transport coefficients nonperturbatively.
In ergodic quantum spin chains, locally conserved quantities such as energy or particle number generically evolve according to hydrodynamic equations as they relax to equilibrium. We investigate the complexity of simulating hydrodynamics at infinite temperature with multiple methods: time evolving block decimation (TEBD), TEBD with density matrix truncation (DMT), the recursion method with a universal operator growth hypothesis, and operator-size truncated (OST) dynamics. Density matrix truncation and the OST dynamics give consistent dynamical correlations to t=60/Jt=60/Jt=60/J and diffusion coefficients agreeing within 11%1. TEBD only converges for $t\ensuremath{\lesssim}20$, but still produces diffusion coefficients accurate within 1%. The universal operator growth hypothesis fails to converge and only matches other methods on short times. We see no evidence of long-time tails in either DMT or OST calculations of the current-current correlator, although we cannot rule out that they appear at longer times. We do observe power-law corrections to the energy density correlator. At finite wavelength, we observe a crossover from purely diffusive, overdamped decay of the energy density to underdamped oscillatory behavior similar to that of cold-atom experiments. We dub this behavior ``hot band second sound'' and offer a microscopically motivated toy model.
We present preliminary numerical evidence for the hypothesis that the Hamiltonian SU(2) gauge theory discretized on a lattice obeys the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH). To do so we study three approximations: (a) a linear plaquette chain in a reduced Hilbert space limiting the electric field basis to j = 0 , 1 2 , (b) a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice with periodic or closed boundary condition and the same Hilbert space constraint, and (c) a chain of only three plaquettes but such a sufficiently large electric field Hilbert space ( j ≤ 7 2 ) that convergence of all energy eigenvalues in the analyzed energy window is observed. While an unconstrained Hilbert space is required to reach the continuum limit of SU(2) gauge theory, numerical resource constraints do not permit us to realize this requirement for all values of the coupling constant and large lattices. In each of the three studied cases we check first for random matrix theory (RMT) behavior in the eigenenergy spectrum and then analyze the diagonal as well as the off-diagonal matrix elements between energy eigenstates for a few operators. Within current uncertainties all results for (a), (b) and (c) agree with ETH predictions. Furthermore, we find the off-diagonal matrix elements of the electric energy operator exhibit RMT behavior in frequency windows that are small enough in (b) and (c). To unambiguously establish ETH behavior and determine for which class of operators it applies, an extension of our investigations is necessary. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
We simulate the local thermalization dynamics for minimally truncated SU(2) pure gauge theory on linear plaquette chains with up to 151 plaquettes using IBM quantum computers. We study the time dependence of the entanglement spectrum, Rényi-2 entropy and anti-flatness on small subsystems. The quantum hardware results obtained after error mitigation agree with extrapolated classical simulator results for chains consisting of up to 101 plaquettes. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of local thermalization studies for chaotic quantum systems, such as nonabelian lattice gauge theories, on current noisy quantum computing platforms.
We test the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) for 2+12+12+1 dimensional SU(2) lattice gauge theory. By considering the theory on a chain of plaquettes and truncating basis states for link variables at j=1/2j=1/2j=1/2, we can map it onto a quantum spin chain with local interactions and numerically exactly diagonalize the Hamiltonian for reasonably large lattice sizes. We find energy level repulsion in momentum sectors with no remaining discrete symmetry. We study two local observables made up of Wilson loops and calculate their matrix elements in the energy eigenbasis, which are shown consistent with the ETH.
We study the entanglement entropy of Hamiltonian SU(2) lattice gauge theory in 2 + 1 dimensions on linear plaquette chains and show that the entanglement entropies of both ground and excited states follow Page curves. The transition of the subsystem size dependence of the entanglement entropy from the area law for the ground state to the volume law for highly excited states is found to be described by a universal crossover function. Quantum many-body scars in the middle of the spectrum, which are present in the electric flux truncated Hilbert space, where the gauge theory can be mapped onto an Ising model, disappear when higher electric field representations are included in the Hilbert space basis. This suggests the continuum ( 2 + 1 )-dimensional SU(2) gauge theory does not have such scarred states. Published by the American Physical Society 2024