The quantum geometric tensor and quantum Fisher information have recently been shown to provide a unified geometric description of the linear response of many-body systems. However, a similar geometric description of higher-order perturbative phenomena including nonlinear response in generic quantum systems is lacking. In this work, we develop a general framework for the time-dependent quantum geometry of many-body systems by treating external perturbing fields as coordinates on the space of density matrices. We use the Bures distance between the initial and time-evolved density matrix to define geometric quantities through a perturbative expansion. To lowest order, we derive a time-dependent generalization of the Bures metric related to the spectral density of linear response functions, unifying previous results for the quantum metric in various limits and providing a geometric interpretation of Fermi’s golden rule. At next order in the expansion, we define a time-dependent Bures-Levi-Civita connection for general many-body systems. We show that the connection is the sum of one contribution that is related to a second-order nonlinear response function, and a second contribution that captures the higher geometric structure of first-order perturbation theory. We show that in the quasistatic, zero-temperature limit for noninteracting fermions, this Bures connection reduces to the known expression for band-theoretic Christoffel symbols. Our work provides a systematic framework to explore many-body quantum geometry beyond the quantum metric and highlights how higher-order correlation functions can probe this geometry.
The quantum geometric tensor and quantum Fisher information have recently been shown to provide a unified geometric description of the linear response of many-body systems. However, a similar geometric description of higher-order perturbative phenomena including nonlinear response in generic quantum systems is lacking. In this work, we develop a general framework for the time-dependent quantum geometry of many-body systems by treating external perturbing fields as coordinates on the space of density matrices. We use the Bures distance between the initial and time-evolved density matrix to define geometric quantities through a perturbative expansion. To lowest order, we derive a time-dependent generalization of the Bures metric related to the spectral density of linear response functions, unifying previous results for the quantum metric in various limits and providing a geometric interpretation of Fermi’s golden rule. At next order in the expansion, we define a time-dependent Bures-Levi-Civita connection for general many-body systems. We show that the connection is the sum of one contribution that is related to a second-order nonlinear response function, and a second contribution that captures the higher geometric structure of first-order perturbation theory. We show that in the quasistatic, zero-temperature limit for noninteracting fermions, this Bures connection reduces to the known expression for band-theoretic Christoffel symbols. Our work provides a systematic framework to explore many-body quantum geometry beyond the quantum metric and highlights how higher-order correlation functions can probe this geometry.
Geometry plays a fundamental role in a wide range of physical responses, from anomalous transport coefficients to their related sum rules. Notable examples include the quantization of the Hall conductivity and the Souza-Wilkens-Martin (SWM) sum rule -- both valid at zero temperature, independent of interactions and disorder. The finite-temperature generalization of the SWM sum rule has been explored in the literature, revealing deep connections to the geometry of density matrices. Building on recent advances in time-dependent geometric frameworks, we propose a time-dependent quantum geometric tensor for thermal density matrices. This formalism provides a unified interpretation of known sum rules within the framework of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, further elucidating their fundamental geometric origin. In addition, it provides experimentally accessible methods to probe quantum geometry beyond the zero-temperature regime.
The geometry of quantum states has emerged as a key ingredient in understanding the linear and nonlinear responses of quantum materials. To date, however, the connection between geometry and nonlinear response is best understood for clean, noninteracting systems at zero temperature. In this work, we develop a theory of multi-state geometry for density matrices and use it to derive sum rules for second-order rectification, making no assumptions about the strength of disorder or interactions. We first show that perturbation theory for thermal density matrices gives rise to two dual information-theoretic connections and an almost complex structure. We introduce a complex, quantum generalization of the Amari-Chentsov tensor of classical information theory, the cQAC tensor, which captures the multi-state geometry of the perturbed density matrix. We derive a zero-temperature sum rule for the frequency-integrated DC rectification response of an insulator as a difference between a ground state third cumulant and the complex distortion tensor, a multi-state geometric quantity built from the cQAC tensor. This generalizes known single-particle sum rules for the shift and nonlinear Hall currents to many-body systems and general perturbations. Specializing to the shift current, we resolve the geometric contribution for multiband insulators into particle-like and hole-like terms. We verify the sum rule numerically in a generalized Kane-Mele model, finding that the geometric contribution can dominate the integrated response. Finally, we show that although the splitting of the sum rule into cumulant and geometric contributions does not survive at nonzero temperature, the measured sum rule for insulators differs from its zero-temperature form by corrections exponentially small in the gap, allowing low-temperature rectification measurements to probe the multi-state geometry of insulators.
Quantum geometry has emerged as a powerful framework for understanding topological, optical and transport phenomena, revealing connections between the quantum geometric tensor (QGT) and linear response functions. Building on these developments, recent works formulate quantum geometry so that the parameter space is extended from the Brillouin zone to the space of external perturbing fields that modify the ground state. Here we develop a self-consistent diagrammatric route to determine the QGT for generic parameter spaces, including collective fluctuations or structural distortions. With this in view, we generalize previous approaches to build the geometric tensor from interacting vertex correlations that provide the spectral metric and curvature. The formalism presented here extends the interaction-dressed vertex approach (previously applied to electromagnetic responses in momentum space) to collective electronic and structural deformation fields, complementing ongoing efforts to quantify many-body contributions to quantum geometry.
In this thesis, we study nonequilibrium statistical mechanics from a geometric perspective.In particular, we (i) examine the relation between quantum information geometry and linear response theory, and (ii) analyze nonequilibrium processes in thermodynamic control and derive a geometric expression for work.The first original study in this thesis is to understand quantum information geometry based on linear response theory.We show that the quantum Fisher information can be determined by measuring the linear response functions.For that purpose, we generalize the fluctuationdissipation theorem, and establish the quantitative relation between linear response functions and the generalized covariance, which contains the same amount of information on the quantum state.Based on the generalized fluctuation-dissipation theorem, we can determine the generalized covariance and the quantum Fisher information by measuring linear response functions, such as the dynamical susceptibilities and the complex admittances for all frequencies.We demonstrate that our result is applicable to experimental determination of the skew information, and a validation of skew information-based uncertainty relations.The second original study is on the analysis of work in thermodynamic control.We extend the thermodynamic metric-based expression for work into two directions.One is to obtain a systematic expansion of the average work from a phenomenological argument, and the other is to obtain an expansion of the work distribution for overdamped Langevin systems.First, we derive a systematic expansion of the work in terms of a small parameter ϵ that characterizes how slowly we control the system.The leading-order contribution is given by the thermodynamic metric expression.The next leading-order contributions to the thermodynamic metric contribution can be detected by comparing the excess work in a forward control and a backward control, and are predicted to scale as 1/T 2 as a function of the total control time T .Since the expansion is derived without assuming any specific microscopic dynamics, it is valid as long as the perturbation series expansion is valid.Finally, we examine the work distribution in overdamped Langevin systems.We derive the time evolution equation for the moment generating function of the work, and solve it from the lower-order contributions in ϵ.The O(ϵ) contribution to the generating function reproduces two known facts: the work distribution is Gaussian, and the average work is given by the thermodynamic metric.When we take up to O(ϵ 2 ) contributions into account, the work distribution exhibits nonzero skewness, which means that the fluctuation-dissipation relation is violated with scaling 1/T 2 .Furthermore, from the analytic calculation with numerical supports, we conjecture that the nth cumulant of the work scales as 1/T n-1 for n ≥ 1.
Much of our understanding of gapless quantum matter stems from low-energy descriptions using conformal field theory. This is especially true in 1+1 dimensions, where such theories have an infinite-dimensional parameter space induced by their conformal symmetry. We reveal the underlying quantum geometry by considering finite many-body systems driven by time-dependent conformal transformations. For small deformations, perturbation theory predicts absorption rates and linear responses that probe the quantum geometric tensor. For arbitrarily large but adiabatic deformations, we show that periodic drives give rise to nontrivial return amplitudes involving the quantum metric, beyond the familiar leading order that only features a Berry phase. The former is less sensitive to decoherence than the latter, so it can provide robust experimental signatures of our predictions. Our field-theoretic findings are universal, comprising general relations between measurable quantities and quantum geometry that only depend on the emergent effective description. This is supported both by numerical simulations of gapless lattice models, and by exact results for quantum dynamics under certain Floquet drives, probing the full dynamical parameter space.
Quantum geometry - including both the quantum metric and Berry curvature - arises from the non-zero overlap of well-defined eigenstates and their adiabatic evolution across the Brillouin zone. It has revolutionized condensed matter physics and material science by explaining quantum Hall effects, establishing the modern theory of polarization, and enabling a systematic search for topological materials on a large scale. Yet, despite these advances, we lack a framework for leveraging quantum geometry in the strongly interacting regime. Bridging this gap is critical: if we can harness geometric responses in correlated metals, we stand to engineer desirable transport and optical properties using existing material platforms, thus bypassing the complex task of designing materials with tailored quantum geometry from scratch. In this thesis, we take steps toward such a framework. First, we analyze the resilience of topological boundary modes in the presence of electronic correlations, identifying when interactions preserve, diminish, or destroy boundary modes. Second, we reveal geometric fingerprints of fluctuations in magnetically ordered systems, tying the electric quantum metric to the formation of instabilities and chiral quasi-particle excitations. Third, we generalize quantum geometry to describe families of many-body wave functions, providing a new algorithm to compute state-manifold curvatures suited to interacting phases. Our approach combines analytical theory with numerical methods, including density functional theory and tensor-network simulations, and is supported by open-source software developed during the PhD. Together, these results advance the topological classification of interacting phases and extend quantum geometry from single-particle bands to correlation functions, providing tools to design materials and devices with targeted geometric responses.