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arXiv:2503.14371 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Superdiffusion resilience in Heisenberg chains with two-dimensional interactions on a quantum processor

Keerthi Kumaran, Manas Sajjan, Bibek Pokharel, Kevin Wang, Joe Gibbs, Jeffrey Cohn, Barbara Jones, Sarah Mostame, Sabre Kais, Arnab Banerjee

Published Mar 30, 2026• 1 citation
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Abstract

Observing superdiffusive scaling in the spin transport of the integrable 1D Heisenberg model is one of the key discoveries in non-equilibrium quantum many-body physics. Despite this remarkable theoretical development and the subsequent experimental observation of the phenomena in KCuF$_3$, real materials are often imperfect and contain integrability breaking interactions. Understanding the effect of such terms on the superdiffusion is crucial in identifying connections to such materials. Current quantum hardware has already ascertained its utility in studying such non-equilibrium phenomena by simulating the superdiffusion of the 1D Heisenberg model. In this work, we perform a quantum simulation of the superdiffusion breakdown by generalizing the superdiffusive Floquet-type 1D Heisenberg model to a general 2D model. We comprehensively study the effect of different 2D interactions on the superdiffusion breakdown by tuning up their strength from zero, corresponding to the 1D Heisenberg chain, to finite nonzero values. We observe that certain 2D interactions are more resilient against superdiffusion breakdown than others and that the $SU(2)$ preserving 2D interaction has the highest resilience among all the 2D interactions we study. Importantly, this observed resilience has direct implications for sustaining superdiffusive spin transport in two-dimensional lattices. We reason out the relative resilience against the superdiffusion breakdown through an analysis of the scattering coefficients off the 2D interaction in otherwise 1D chains. The relative resilience of different interaction types against superdiffusion breakdown was also captured in quantum hardware with remarkable accuracy, further establishing the current quantum hardware's applicability in simulating interesting non-equilibrium quantum many-body phenomena.

DOI
10.1103/j971-h796

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Observing superdiffusive scaling in the spin transport of the integrable 1D Heisenberg model is one of the key discoveries in non-equilibrium quantum many-body physics. Despite this remarkable theoretical development and the subsequent experimental observation of the phenomena in KCuF3_33​, real materials are often imperfect and contain integrability breaking interactions. Understanding the effect of such terms on the superdiffusion is crucial in identifying connections to such materials. Current quantum hardware has already ascertained its utility in studying such non-equilibrium phenomena by simulating the superdiffusion of the 1D Heisenberg model. In this work, we perform a quantum simulation of the superdiffusion breakdown by generalizing the superdiffusive Floquet-type 1D Heisenberg model to a general 2D model. We comprehensively study the effect of different 2D interactions on the superdiffusion breakdown by tuning up their strength from zero, corresponding to the 1D Heisenberg chain, to finite nonzero values. We observe that certain 2D interactions are more resilient against superdiffusion breakdown than others and that the SU(2)SU(2)SU(2) preserving 2D interaction has the highest resilience among all the 2D interactions we study. Importantly, this observed resilience has direct implications for sustaining superdiffusive spin transport in two-dimensional lattices. We reason out the relative resilience against the superdiffusion breakdown through an analysis of the scattering coefficients off the 2D interaction in otherwise 1D chains. The relative resilience of different interaction types against superdiffusion breakdown was also captured in quantum hardware with remarkable accuracy, further establishing the current quantum hardware's applicability in simulating interesting non-equilibrium quantum many-body phenomena.
Superdiffusive transport with dynamical exponent z=3/2z=3/2z=3/2 has been firmly established at finite temperature for a class of integrable systems with a non-abelian global symmetry GGG. On the inclusion of integrability-breaking perturbations, diffusive transport with z=2z=2z=2 is generically expected to hold in the limit of late time. Recent studies of the classical Haldane-Ishimori-Skylanin model have found that perturbations that preserve the global symmetry lead to a much slower timescale for the onset of diffusion, albeit with uncertainty over the exact scaling exponent. That is, for perturbations of strength λλλ, the characteristic timescale for diffusion goes as t∗∼λ−αt_*\sim λ^{-α}t∗​∼λ−α for some ααα. Using large-scale matrix product state simulations, we investigate this behavior for perturbations to the canonical quantum model showing superdiffusion: the S=1/2S=1/2S=1/2 quantum Heisenberg chain. We consider a ladder configuration and look at various perturbations that either break or preserve the SU(2)SU(2)SU(2) symmetry, leading to scaling exponents consistent with those observed in one classical study arXiv:2402.18661: α=2α=2α=2 for symmetry-breaking terms and α=6α=6α=6 for symmetry-preserving terms. We also consider perturbations from another integrable point of the ladder model with G=SU(4)G=SU(4)G=SU(4) and find consistent results. Finally, we consider a generalization to an SU(3)SU(3)SU(3) ladder and find that the α=6α=6α=6 scaling appears to be universal across superdiffusive systems when the perturbations preserve the non-abelian symmetry GGG.
Isotropic integrable spin chains such as the Heisenberg model feature superdiffusive spin transport belonging to an as-yet-unidentified dynamical universality class closely related to that of Kardar, Parisi, and Zhang (KPZ). To determine whether these results extend to more generic one-dimensional models, particularly those realizable in quantum simulators, we investigate spin and energy transport in non-integrable, long-range Heisenberg models using state-of-the-art tensor network methods. Despite the lack of integrability and the asymptotic expectation of diffusion, for power-law models (with exponent 2<α<∞2 < α< \infty2<α<∞) we observe long-lived z=3/2z=3/2z=3/2 superdiffusive spin transport and two-point correlators consistent with KPZ scaling functions, up to times t∼103/Jt \sim 10^3/Jt∼103/J. We conjecture that this KPZ-like transport is due to the proximity of such power-law-interacting models to the integrable family of Inozemtsev models, which we show to also exhibit KPZ-like spin transport across all interaction ranges. Finally, we consider anisotropic spin models naturally realized in Rydberg atom arrays and ultracold polar molecules, demonstrating that a wide range of long-lived, non-diffusive transport can be observed in experimental settings.
The isotropic Heisenberg chain represents a particular case of an integrable many-body system exhibiting superdiffusive spin transport at finite temperatures. Here, we show that this model has distinct properties also at finite magnetization $m\ensuremath{\ne}0$, even upon introducing the SU(2) invariant perturbations. Specifically, we observe nonmonotonic dependence of the diffusion constant ${\mathcal{D}}_{0}(\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}})$ on the spin anisotropy $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$, with a pronounced maximum at $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}=1$. The latter dependence remains true also in the zero magnetization sector, with superdiffusion at $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}=1$ that is remarkably stable against isotropic perturbation (at least in finite-size systems), consistent with recent experiments with cold atoms.
Finite-temperature spin transport in integrable isotropic spin chains (i.e., spin chains with continuous non-Abelian symmetries) is known to be superdiffusive, with anomalous transport properties displaying remarkable robustness to isotropic integrability-breaking perturbations. Using a discrete-time classical model, we numerically study the crossover to conventional diffusion resulting from both noisy and Floquet isotropic perturbations of strength $\ensuremath{\lambda}$. We identify an anomalously-long crossover timescale ${t}_{★}\ensuremath{\sim}{\ensuremath{\lambda}}^{\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\alpha}}$ with $\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{\approx}6$ in both cases. We discuss our results in terms of a kinetic theory of transport that characterizes the lifetimes of large solitons responsible for superdiffusion.
The dynamics of spin at finite temperature in the spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain was found to be superdiffusive in numerous recent numerical and experimental studies. Theoretical approaches to this problem have emphasized the role of nonabelian SU(2) symmetry as well as integrability, but the associated methods cannot be readily applied when integrability is broken. We examine spin transport in a spin-1/2 chain in which the exchange couplings fluctuate in space and time around a nonzero mean J, a model introduced by De Nardis et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 057201 (2021).PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.127.057201]. We show that operator dynamics in the strong noise limit at infinite temperature can be analyzed using conventional perturbation theory as an expansion in J. We find that regular diffusion persists at long times, albeit with an enhanced diffusion constant. The finite time spin dynamics is analyzed and compared with matrix product operator simulations.
Abstract Understanding universal behavior of far-from-equilibrium transport dynamics at a quantum many-body level is a longstanding challenge. A full characterization of universal dynamics of nonlocal correlation functions still remains largely unknown. In this letter, we uncover universal scaling laws of higher-order cumulants in one-dimensional isotropic Heisenberg model, revealing anomalous behaviors of nonequilibrium dynamics exclusively accessible in higher-order correlation functions. Using numerical simulations and full counting statistics, we determine the power laws of both the spin polarization transfer and contrast cumulants for different kinds of helix and domain-wall initial states. Building on such physical states, we unify the scaling behavior of the higher-order cumulants as two types of dynamics: anomalous diffusive and superdiffusive. For the former, these higher cumulants show a deviation from Gaussian statistics, with the scaling exponents being identical for the first four orders. For the latter, however, we observe a breakdown of KPZ universality, with the exponents of the third and fourth orders differing significantly from those of the first two. Our results are also agreeable with recent experimental observations, advancing understanding of far-from-equilibrium transport phenomena.