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arXiv:2503.08620 · SciPost Physics Core

Interplay of entanglement structures and stabilizer entropy in spin models

Michele Viscardi, Marcello Dalmonte, Alioscia Hamma, Emanuele Tirrito

Published Feb 26, 2026• 12 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Understanding the interplay between nonstabilizerness and entanglement is crucial for uncovering the fundamental origins of quantum complexity. Recent studies have proposed entanglement spectral quantities, such as antiflatness of the entanglement spectrum and entanglement capacity, as effective complexity measures, establishing direct connections to stabilizer Rényi entropies. In this work, we systematically investigate quantum complexity across a diverse range of spin models, analyzing how entanglement structure and nonstabilizerness serve as distinctive signatures of quantum phases. By studying entanglement spectra and stabilizer entropy measures, we demonstrate that these quantities consistently differentiate between distinct phases of matter. Specifically, we provide a detailed analysis of spin chains including the XXZ model, the transverse-field XY model, its extension with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, as well as the Cluster Ising and Cluster XY models. Our findings reveal that entanglement spectral properties and magic-based measures serve as intertwined, robust indicators of quantum phase transitions, highlighting their significance in characterizing quantum complexity in many-body systems.

DOI
10.21468/scipostphyscore.9.1.012

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Understanding the interplay between nonstabilizerness and entanglement is crucial for uncovering the fundamental origins of quantum complexity. Recent studies have proposed entanglement spectral quantities, such as antiflatness of the entanglement spectrum and entanglement capacity, as effective complexity measures, establishing direct connections to stabilizer Rényi entropies. In this work, we systematically investigate quantum complexity across a diverse range of spin models, analyzing how entanglement structure and nonstabilizerness serve as distinctive signatures of quantum phases. By studying entanglement spectra and stabilizer entropy measures, we demonstrate that these quantities consistently differentiate between distinct phases of matter. Specifically, we provide a detailed analysis of spin chains including the XXZ model, the transverse-field XY model, its extension with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, as well as the Cluster Ising and Cluster XY models. Our findings reveal that entanglement spectral properties and magic-based measures serve as intertwined, robust indicators of quantum phase transitions, highlighting their significance in characterizing quantum complexity in many-body systems.
We investigate nonstabilizerness, also known as ``magic,'' to understand criticality and exceptional points in non-Hermitian quantum many-body systems. Our focus is on parity-time (PT\mathcal{PT}PT)-symmetric spin chains, specifically the non-Hermitian transverse-field Ising and XX models. We calculate stabilizer Rényi entropies in their ground states using non-Hermitian matrix product state methods. Our findings show that magic exhibits unique and model-specific signs of phase transitions. In the Ising chain, it peaks near the regular Hermitian-like critical line but disappears across exceptional points. In contrast, in the XX chain, it reaches its maximum at the exceptional line where PT\mathcal{PT}PT symmetry is broken. Finite-size scaling reveals that these effects become more pronounced with larger systems, highlighting nonstabilizerness as a sensitive marker for both quantum criticality and non-Hermitian spectral degeneracies. We also investigate magic in momentum space for the XX model analytically and find that it reaches a minimum around exceptional points. Our results indicate that magic takes extremal values at the exceptional points and serves as a valuable tool for examining complexity, criticality, and symmetry breaking in non-Hermitian quantum matter.
The Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model is of paramount importance for the understanding of both strange metals and a microscopic theory of two-dimensional gravity. We study the interplay between stabilizer R\'enyi entropy and entanglement entropy in both the ground state and highly excited states of the $\mathrm{SYK}\ensuremath{-}4+\mathrm{SYK}\ensuremath{-}2$ model, interpolating the highly chaotic four-body interactions model with the integrable two-body interactions one. The interplay between these quantities is also assessed through universal statistics of the entanglement spectrum and its antiflatness. We find that SYK-4 is indeed characterized by a complex pattern of both entanglement and nonstabilizer resources, while SYK-2 is nonuniversal and not complex. We discuss the fragility and robustness of these features depending on the interpolation parameter.
Quantum spin liquids (QSLs) are long-range entangled phases of matter and a natural setting for exploring how quantum correlations generate quantum complexity. Motivated by the emergence of magic, or nonstabilizerness, as a diagnostic of many-body complexity beyond entanglement, we study magic of QSLs by computing the stabilizer Rényi entropy (SRE) of the Kitaev honeycomb model. We derive a correspondence between Pauli strings and products of itinerant Majorana operators in the model's free-fermion description; this enables the sampling of SRE using an optimized algorithm for Gaussian states in systems with thousands of spins. Our results show that magic is largest in the gapless phase, where subleading volume-law corrections indicate nonlocal contributions, while in the gapped phases, SRE decreases in quantitative agreement with a perturbative expansion that we develop in the anisotropic limit. At the topological phase transition, SRE exhibits universal scaling dictated by critical exponents.
Nonstabilizerness, also known as "magic," quantifies the deviation of quantum states from stabilizer states, capturing the complexity necessary for quantum computational advantage. In this Letter, we investigate the dynamics of nonstabilizerness in disordered many-body localized (MBL) systems using the stabilizer Rényi entropy (SRE). Leveraging a phenomenological description based on the ℓ-bit model, we analytically and numerically demonstrate that interactions profoundly influence nonstabilizerness spreading, inducing a power-law growth of SRE that markedly contrasts with the rapid saturation observed in ergodic systems. We validate our theoretical predictions through numerical simulations of the disordered transverse-field Ising model, showing excellent agreement across various disorder strengths, system sizes, and initial states. Additionally, we uncover a universal relationship between SRE and entanglement entropy, revealing their common scaling in the MBL regime independent of disorder strength and system size. Our results offer critical insights into the interplay of disorder, interactions, and complexity in quantum many-body systems.
While nonstabilizerness (''magic'') is a key resource for universal quantum computation, its behavior in many-body quantum systems, especially near criticality, remains poorly understood. We develop a spectral transfer-matrix framework for the stabilizer Rényi entropy (SRE) in infinite matrix product states, showing that its spectrum contains universal subleading information. In particular, we identify an SRE correlation length -- distinct from the standard correlation length -- which diverges at continuous phase transitions and governs the spatial response of the SRE to local perturbations. We derive exact SRE expressions for the bond dimension χ=2χ=2χ=2 MPS ''skeleton'' of the cluster-Ising model, and we numerically probe its universal scaling along the Z2\mathbb{Z}_2Z2​ critical lines in the phase diagram. These results demonstrate that nonstabilizerness captures signatures of criticality and local perturbations, providing a new lens on the interplay between computational resources and emergent phenomena in quantum many-body systems.
Quantum entanglement and quantum magic are two distinct fundamental resources that enable quantum systems to exhibit complex phenomena beyond the capabilities of classical computer simulations. While quantum entanglement has been extensively used to characterize both equilibrium and dynamical phases, the study of quantum magic, typically quantified by the stabilizer Rényi entropy (SRE), remains largely limited to numerical simulations of moderate system sizes. In this Letter, we establish a general framework for analyzing the SRE in solvable Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev models in the large-N limit, which enables the application of the saddle-point approximation. Applying this method to the Maldacena-Qi coupled Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model, we identify a series of first-order transitions of the SRE as the temperature is tuned. In particular, we uncover an intrinsic transition of the SRE that cannot be detected through thermodynamic quantities. We also discuss the theoretical understanding of the SRE in both the high-temperature and low-temperature limits. Our results pave the way for studying the SRE in strongly correlated fermionic systems in the thermodynamic limit and suggest a new class of transitions for which the SRE serves as an order parameter.