Characterizing the nonlocal nature of quantum states is a central challenge in the practical application of large-scale quantum computation and simulation. Quantum mutual information (QMI), a fundamental nonlocal measure, plays a key role in quantifying entanglement and has become increasingly important in studying nonequilibrium quantum many-body phenomena, such as many-body localization and thermalization. However, experimental measurement of QMI remains extremely difficult, particularly for nonequilibrium states, which are more complex than ground states. In this Letter, we employ a multilayer perceptron (MLP) to establish a universal mapping between the QMI and local correlations only up to second order for nonequilibrium states generated by quenches in a one-dimensional disordered XXZ model. Our approach provides a practical method for experimentally extracting QMI, readily applicable in platforms such as superconducting qubits. Moreover, this work will establishes a general framework for reconstructing other nonlocal observables, including Fisher information and out-of-time-ordered correlators.
Characterizing the nonlocal nature of quantum states is a central challenge in the practical application of large-scale quantum computation and simulation. Quantum mutual information (QMI), a fundamental nonlocal measure, plays a key role in quantifying entanglement and has become increasingly important in studying nonequilibrium quantum many-body phenomena, such as many-body localization and thermalization. However, experimental measurement of QMI remains extremely difficult, particularly for nonequilibrium states, which are more complex than ground states. In this Letter, we employ a multilayer perceptron (MLP) to establish a universal mapping between the QMI and local correlations only up to second order for nonequilibrium states generated by quenches in a one-dimensional disordered XXZ model. Our approach provides a practical method for experimentally extracting QMI, readily applicable in platforms such as superconducting qubits. Moreover, this work will establishes a general framework for reconstructing other nonlocal observables, including Fisher information and out-of-time-ordered correlators.
Information shared between parties quantifies their correlation. The encoding of correlations across space and time characterises the structure, history, and interactions of systems. One of the most fundamental properties that emerges from studies of information is the area law, which states that information shared between spatial subregions typically scales with the area of their boundary rather than their volume. In non-interacting, quantum many-body systems, where Gaussian statistics apply, the scaling of information measures is well understood. Within interacting systems, the readout of information measures is impeded by the complexity of state reconstruction. As such, no measurements beyond small quantum systems (e.g., composed of few, localised particles) have been made. Here, we fill this gap by experimentally demonstrating the area law of mutual information in an ultra-cold atom simulator of quantum fields with tuneable interaction strength. Our results detail the scaling of mutual information with subsystem volume, boundary area, and separation between spatial regions at finite temperature. Moreover, we quantify the total effect of non-Gaussian correlations using an information-theoretic measure - relative entropy. Our presented approach is data-driven, model agnostic, and readily applicable to other platforms and observables, thus constituting a universal toolkit for probing information in high-dimensional quantum systems and its role in shaping quantum matter and spacetime.
Quantum many-body systems in equilibrium can be effectively characterized using the framework of quantum statistical mechanics. However, there still exist a lot of questions regarding how to understand the nonequilibrium dynamical behavior of quantum many-body systems, which are not accessible with the thermodynamic description. Experiments in quantum simulators are opening up a route toward the generation of quantum states beyond the equilibrium paradigm. As an example, in closed quantum many-body systems, dynamical quantum phase transitions act as phase transitions in time, with physical quantities becoming nonanalytic at a critical time, extending important principles such as universality to the nonequilibrium realm. Here, in a solid-state quantum simulator, we report the experimental detection of out-of-time-order correlators in the presence of nonequilibrium phase transitions with the transverse field Ising model, which are a central concept to quantify quantum information scrambling and quantum chaos. Through measuring the multiple quantum spectra, we eventually observe the buildup of quantum correlation. Further applications of this protocol could potentially enable studies of other exotic phenomena such as many-body localization and tests of the holographic duality between quantum and gravitational systems.
Measurement correlations in quantum systems can exhibit nonlocal behavior, a fundamental aspect of quantum mechanics with applications such as device-independent quantum information processing. However, it is in general not known which states are local and which ones are not. In particular, it remains an outstanding challenge to explicitly construct local hidden-variable (LHV) models for arbitrary multipartite entangled states. To address this, we use gradient-descent algorithms from machine learning to find LHV models that reproduce the statistics of arbitrary measurements for quantum many-body states. In contrast to previous approaches, our method employs a general ansatz, enabling it to discover LHV models for all local states. Therefore, it for example provides actual estimates for the critical noise levels at which two-qubit Werner states and three-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger and W states become local. Furthermore, we find evidence suggesting that two-spin subsystems in the ground states of translationally invariant Hamiltonians are genuinely local, while bigger subsystems are in general not. Our method now offers a quantitative tool for determining the regimes of nonlocality in any given physical context, such as nonequilibrium, decoherence, or disorder.
The Kibble-Zurek mechanism (KZM) and finite-time scaling (FTS) provide a foundational framework for driven critical dynamics, yet their predictive power has been largely confined to local observables. Here, we establish a universal finite-time scaling theory for the nonequilibrium dynamics of quantum entanglement. Using unbiased quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate the corner entanglement entropy of (2+1)-dimensional interacting Dirac fermions driven from ordered phases toward a quantum critical point. We find that the corner entanglement accurately obeys a universal driven scaling governed by the driving rate and system size, persisting whether the initial ordered state is fully gapped or hosts gapless Goldstone modes. Crucially, this dynamical entanglement exhibits a logarithmic dependence on the driving rate, from which the universal corner coefficient of the underlying conformal field theory can be robustly extracted far from equilibrium. These results generalize the KZM from local observables to the intrinsic nonlocal quantum information measures, offering a practical blueprint for characterizing quantum criticality and entanglement on programmable quantum simulators.
One of the distinguishing achievements of physics has been the ability to describe the Universe based upon underlying microscopic principles. When there are many participating objects being governed by these microscopic principles, the resultant behavior often harbors emergent collective phenomena that may not be obviously related to the microscopic description. Phase transitions, quantum or classical, are a canonical example of such many-body phenomena that are understood in equilibrium through a framework of thermodynamic constraints, statistical ensembles, and a growth of system-wide correlations at the transition. However, a new class of quantum phase transitions has recently emerged for non-equilibrium systems with behavior that is not captured by this traditional framework. In the case of isolated quantum systems, these transitions occur among excited eigenstates and requires knowledge of the structure of these individual eigenstates in the quantum system. Understanding what drives such a phase transition requires a deeper microscopic knowledge of the role of correlations at the transition. \nThe use of ultracold atoms in optical lattices has paved the way for faithfully realizing quantum phase transitions. In particular, the advent of the quantum gas microscope realized an experimental platform that is highly controllable and provides microscopic access to the many-bodied wave functions. All experiments presented in this thesis use such a quantum gas microscope architecture where a quantum degenerate gas of Rb is used to probe the behavior of non-equilibrium quantum systems in one spatial dimension.\nThis thesis briefly discusses some studies of entanglement in equilibrium quantum phase transitions near the ground state of the system. In the first experiment, we directly measure the second-order R\\'enyi entanglement entropy that develops as a Bose-Hubbard system transitions from a Mott insulator to a superfluid. This is followed by a study of entanglement growth at the transition in the transverse Ising model. \nThese studies progress to the investigation of two particular non-equilibrium quantum phases and their transition into one another: quantum thermalization and many-body localization. We investigate the development of entanglement entropy that mimics thermodynamic entropy for an isolated quantum system which locally thermalizes under its own unitary dynamics. We then investigate the only known robust exception to this thermalizing behavior by studying the onset of many-body localization due to disorder. We observe the breakdown of thermalization in this phase and the logarithmically slow growth of entanglement throughout the system, which identifies the localized system to be an interacting one. Lastly, we investigate the role of correlations in the critical dynamics that emerge at high-orders where the system transitions from thermalizing behavior to many-body localization.
We demonstrate that the quantum mutual information (QMI) is a useful probe to study many-body localization (MBL). First, we focus on the detection of a metal-insulator transition for two different models, the noninteracting Aubry-André-Harper model and the spinless fermionic disordered Hubbard chain. We find that the QMI in the localized phase decays exponentially with the distance between the regions traced out, allowing us to define a correlation length, which converges to the localization length in the case of one particle. Second, we show how the QMI can be used as a dynamical indicator to distinguish an Anderson insulator phase from a MBL phase. By studying the spread of the QMI after a global quench from a random product state, we show that the QMI does not spread in the Anderson insulator phase but grows logarithmically in time in the MBL phase.