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arXiv:2603.02338 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Enhancing entanglement asymmetry in fragmented quantum systems

Lorenzo Gotta, Filiberto Ares, Sara Murciano

cond-mat.stat-mechquant-phSubmitted Mar 2, 2026• Announced Mar 4, 2026• 0 citations• Revised Apr 9, 2026 (v2)
v1 · Mar 2, 2026v2 · Apr 9, 2026v3 · Oct 13, 2026
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Abstract

Entanglement asymmetry provides a quantitative measure of symmetry breaking in many-body quantum states. Focusing on inhomogeneous $U(1)$ charges, such as dipole and multipole moments, we show that the typical asymmetry is bounded by a universal fraction of its maximal value. Multipole charges naturally arise in systems with Hilbert-space fragmentation, where the dynamics splits into exponentially many disconnected sectors. Using the commutant algebra formalism, we generalize entanglement asymmetry to account for fragmentation. While the asymmetry grows logarithmically for conventional symmetries, it can scale extensively in fragmented systems and distinguish classical from quantum fragmentation. We derive general upper bounds for the asymmetry and identify states that saturate them. To study the typical behavior of the asymmetry, we consider the ensemble of random matrix product states. By identifying the bond dimension with an effective time parameter, we qualitatively reproduce recent results on asymmetry dynamics in random quantum circuits, suggesting a universal behavior for the asymmetry of $U(1)$ charges in local ergodic systems.

Journal reference
Phys. Rev. B 114, 235114 - Published 9 October, 2026
DOI
10.1103/lppm-48p3
Comments
25 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

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Entanglement asymmetry provides a quantitative measure of symmetry breaking in many-body quantum states. Focusing on inhomogeneous U(1)U(1)U(1) charges, such as dipole and multipole moments, we show that the typical asymmetry is bounded by a universal fraction of its maximal value. Multipole charges naturally arise in systems with Hilbert-space fragmentation, where the dynamics splits into exponentially many disconnected sectors. Using the commutant algebra formalism, we generalize entanglement asymmetry to account for fragmentation. While the asymmetry grows logarithmically for conventional symmetries, it can scale extensively in fragmented systems and distinguish classical from quantum fragmentation. We derive general upper bounds for the asymmetry and identify states that saturate them. To study the typical behavior of the asymmetry, we consider the ensemble of random matrix product states. By identifying the bond dimension with an effective time parameter, we qualitatively reproduce recent results on asymmetry dynamics in random quantum circuits, suggesting a universal behavior for the asymmetry of U(1)U(1)U(1) charges in local ergodic systems.
We study the dynamics of entanglement asymmetry in random unitary circuits (RUCs). Focusing on a local U ( 1 ) charge, we consider symmetric initial states evolved by both local one-dimensional circuits and geometrically nonlocal RUCs made of two-qudit gates. We compute the entanglement asymmetry of subsystems of arbitrary size, analyzing the relaxation timescales. We show that the entanglement asymmetry of the whole system approaches its stationary value in a time independent of the system size for both local and nonlocal circuits. For subsystems, we find qualitative differences depending on their size. When the subsystem is larger than half of the full system, the equilibration timescales are again independent of the system size for both local and nonlocal circuits and the entanglement asymmetry grows monotonically in time. Conversely, when the subsystems are smaller than half of the full system, we show that the entanglement asymmetry is nonmonotonic in time and that it equilibrates in a time proportional to the quantum-information scrambling time, providing a physical intuition. As a consequence, the subsystem-equilibration time depends on the locality of interactions, scaling linearly and logarithmically in the system size, respectively, for local and nonlocal RUCs. Our work confirms the entanglement asymmetry as a versatile and computable probe of symmetry in many-body physics and yields a phenomenological overview of entanglement-asymmetry evolution in typical nonintegrable dynamics.
A quantum system can restore a broken symmetry faster the more strongly it initially breaks it, an anomaly known as the quantum Mpemba effect. Whether this effect survives once conservation laws fragment the Hilbert space into exponentially many disconnected Krylov sectors has remained open. We address this question for circuits and Hamiltonians with simultaneous charge and dipole conservation, the paradigmatic setting for strong Hilbert-space fragmentation. Combining a replica tensor-network formulation for charge and dipole-conserving gates, which reaches the annealed Rényi-2 entanglement asymmetry up to L=128L=128L=128, with Hamiltonian simulations and an exactly solvable dissipative model, we uncover a higher-order symmetric quantum Mpemba effect: the charge and dipole asymmetries each display Mpemba-like crossings on parametrically distinct timescales. Resolving the state into frozen and active Krylov sectors reveals the mechanism: frozen fragments retain a finite asymmetry that obstructs full restoration, while active fragments host the relaxation responsible for the crossings. Fragmentation thus does not preclude the quantum Mpemba effect but reshapes it into frozen memory and active-fragment relaxation, providing a framework for the Mpemba phenomenology of higher-moment symmetries.
Abstract Entanglement asymmetry (EA) has emerged as a powerful tool for characterizing symmetry breaking in quantum many-body systems. In this Letter, we explore how symmetry is dynamically broken through the lens of EA in two distinct scenarios: a non-symmetric Hamiltonian quench and a non-symmetric random quantum circuit, with a particular focus on U(1) symmetry. In the former case, symmetry remains broken in the subsystem at late times, whereas in the latter case, the symmetry is initially broken and subsequently restored, consistent with the principles of quantum thermalization. Notably, the growth of EA exhibits unexpected overshooting behavior at early times in both contexts, contrasting with the behavior of charge variance. We also consider dynamics of non-symmetric initial states under the symmetry-breaking evolution. Due to the competition of symmetry-breaking in both the initial state and Hamiltonian, the early-time EA can increase and decrease, while quantum Mpemba effects remain evident despite the weak symmetry-breaking in both settings.
Entanglement asymmetry, which serves as a diagnostic tool for symmetry breaking and a proxy for thermalization, has recently been proposed and studied in the context of symmetry restoration for quantum many-body systems undergoing a quench. In this Letter, we investigate symmetry restoration in various symmetric random quantum circuits, particularly focusing on the U(1) symmetry case. In contrast to nonsymmetric random circuits where the U(1) symmetry of a small subsystem can always be restored at late times, we reveal that symmetry restoration can fail in U(1)-symmetric circuits for certain weak symmetry-broken initial states in finite-size systems. In the early-time dynamics, we observe an intriguing quantum Mpemba effect implying that symmetry is restored faster when the initial state is more asymmetric. Furthermore, we also investigate the entanglement asymmetry dynamics for SU(2) and Z_{2} symmetric circuits and identify the presence and absence of the quantum Mpemba effect for the corresponding symmetries, respectively. A unified understanding of these results is provided through the lens of quantum thermalization with conserved charges.
We investigate the subsystem entanglement asymmetry in random quantum automaton ensembles, which are generated by permuting the basis states in the Hilbert space and applying global phase shifts. We compute the ensemble average of the U(1)U(1)U(1) subsystem asymmetry in different connectivity geometries, showing that the late-time limit of the ensemble associated to a 2-local circuit geometry coincides with the all-to-all ensemble average. By focusing on different subsystem sizes, we demonstrate that, similarly to Haar-random circuits, the system locally symmetrizes. However, in sharp contrast to the Haar-random setting, the scale at which symmetrization happens depends on the initial state, a phenomenon we associate with the interplay of conservation of the participation entropy and the uniform exploration of charge sectors. Additionally, we connect the growth of the subsystem asymmetry to the subsystem coherence and show that their growth is characterized by the same symmetrization scale.
Recent work has shown that the entanglement of finite-temperature eigenstates in chaotic quantum many-body local Hamiltonians can be accurately described by an ensemble of random states with an internal U(1) symmetry. We build upon this result to investigate the universal symmetry-breaking properties of such eigenstates. As a probe of symmetry breaking, we employ the entanglement asymmetry, a quantum information observable that quantifies the extent to which symmetry is broken in a subsystem. This measure enables us to explore the finer structure of finite-temperature eigenstates in terms of the U(1)-symmetric random state ensemble; in particular, the relation between the Hamiltonian and the effective conserved charge in the ensemble. Our analysis is supported by analytical calculations for the symmetric random states, as well as exact numerical results for the Mixed-Field Ising spin-1/2 chain, a paradigmatic model of quantum chaoticity.