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arXiv:2607.08649

Extracting conformal data from Loschmidt echoes after critical quenches

Aleix Bou-Comas, Stefano Carignano, Sergio Cerezo-Roquebrún, Esperanza Lopez, Luca Tagliacozzo

quant-phcond-mat.stat-mechcond-mat.str-elhep-thSubmitted Jul 9, 2026• Announced Jul 10, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

Conformal field theory provides universal predictions for Loschmidt amplitudes following quenches from product states to critical Hamiltonians. Building on this observation, we develop a route to extracting conformal data from real-time dynamics without preparing critical low-energy states. After analytic continuation, the Loschmidt amplitude is described by a boundary-CFT partition function on a strip, whose transverse transfer matrix encodes both the boundary operator spectrum and the central charge. Local space-time perturbations of the amplitude are governed by equilibrium correlation functions, and therefore provide access to critical exponents. In parallel, generalized temporal entropies exhibit scaling with time analogous to the equilibrium scaling of spatial entanglement entropy. We show that the low-lying boundary spectrum can be reconstructed from the system-size dependence of finite-chain Loschmidt echoes, whose damped oscillations encode differences of boundary scaling dimensions. Finally, we propose a finite-size scaling protocol that can extract these quantities from simulations or experiments on state-of-the-art quantum platforms.

Comments
24 pages, 12 figures

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Conformal field theory provides universal predictions for Loschmidt amplitudes following quenches from product states to critical Hamiltonians. Building on this observation, we develop a route to extracting conformal data from real-time dynamics without preparing critical low-energy states. After analytic continuation, the Loschmidt amplitude is described by a boundary-CFT partition function on a strip, whose transverse transfer matrix encodes both the boundary operator spectrum and the central charge. Local space-time perturbations of the amplitude are governed by equilibrium correlation functions, and therefore provide access to critical exponents. In parallel, generalized temporal entropies exhibit scaling with time analogous to the equilibrium scaling of spatial entanglement entropy. We show that the low-lying boundary spectrum can be reconstructed from the system-size dependence of finite-chain Loschmidt echoes, whose damped oscillations encode differences of boundary scaling dimensions. Finally, we propose a finite-size scaling protocol that can extract these quantities from simulations or experiments on state-of-the-art quantum platforms.
We show how the Loschmidt echo of a product state after a quench to a conformal invariant critical point and its leading finite time corrections can be predicted by using conformal field theories (CFT). We check such predictions with tensor networks, finding excellent agreement. As a result, we can use the Loschmidt echo to extract the universal information of the underlying CFT including the central charge, the operator content, and its generalized temporal entropies. We are also able to predict and confirm an emerging dual-unitarity of the evolution at late times, since the spatial transfer matrix operator that evolves the system in space becomes unitary in such limit. Our results on the growth of temporal entropies also imply that, using state-of-the art tensor networks algorithms, such calculations only require resources that increase polynomially with the duration of the quench, thus providing an example of numerically efficiently solvable out-of-equilibrium scenario.
Measuring universal data in the strongly correlated regime of quantum critical points remains a fundamental objective for quantum simulators. In foundational work, Calabrese and Cardy demonstrated how these data govern the dynamics of certain global quenches to 1+1-dimensional conformal field theories. While the quasiparticle picture they introduce has been widely successful in both theory and experiment, their seminal prediction that the critical exponents are simply encoded in the relaxation rates of local observables is challenging to investigate experimentally. In this Letter, we examine the critical quench dynamics of local observables from two types of readily accessible initial conditions: ground states and finite-temperature ensembles. We identify universal scaling collapses and scaling functions, utilizing a combination of conformal perturbation theory and tensor network numerics. For the finite-temperature quenches, we determine a regime in which the conformal field theory results are recovered, thereby allowing universal quantum critical data to be extracted from realistic quenches.
A quantum critical system described at low energy by a conformal field theory (CFT) and subjected to a time-periodic boundary drive displays multiple dynamical regimes, depending on the drive frequency. We compute the behavior of quantities including the entanglement entropy and Loschmidt echo, confirming analytic predictions from field theory by exact numerics on the transverse field Ising model and demonstrate universality by adding nonintegrable perturbations. The dynamics naturally separate into three regimes: a slow-driving limit, which has an interpretation as multiple quantum quenches with amplitude corrections from CFT; a fast-driving limit, in which the system behaves as though subject to a single quantum quench; and a crossover regime displaying heating. The universal Floquet dynamics in all regimes can be understood using a combination of boundary CFT and Kibble-Zurek scaling arguments.
Measuring universal data in the strongly correlated regime of quantum critical points remains a fundamental objective for quantum simulators. In foundational work, Calabrese and Cardy demonstrated how these data govern the dynamics of certain global quenches to 1+1-dimensional conformal field theories. While the quasiparticle picture they introduce has been widely successful in both theory and experiment, their seminal prediction that the critical exponents are simply encoded in the relaxation rates of local observables is challenging to investigate experimentally. In this Letter, we examine the critical quench dynamics of local observables from two types of readily accessible initial conditions: ground states and finite-temperature ensembles. We identify universal scaling collapses and scaling functions, utilizing a combination of conformal perturbation theory and tensor network numerics. For the finite-temperature quenches, we determine a regime in which the conformal field theory results are recovered, thereby allowing universal quantum critical data to be extracted from realistic quenches.
Quantum simulations are traditionally confined to exploring dynamics starting from unentangled or low-entanglement states due to severe bottlenecks in protocol design, hardware performance, and classical verification. Here, we report the first quantum simulation of non-equilibrium dynamics initiated directly from a many-body critical ground state. Using a fully-connected trapped-ion processor, we prepare the critical ground state of a transverse-field Ising model via a hardware-tailored, logarithmic-depth quantum circuit based on multi-scale entanglement renormalization. Following this initialization, we apply a deep Floquet drive that maintains emergent conformal symmetry, enabling us to benchmark lattice dynamics against analytical results from continuum theory. In the resulting conformal heating phase, we extract a central charge consistent with the Ising universality class (c=1/2c=1/2c=1/2) from the universal decay of the Loschmidt echo and observe spatial energy localization predicted by field theory. Conversely, the non-heating phase exhibits global finite-time revivals. This work establishes a scalable and versatile framework for exploring critical quantum dynamics.
Understanding the universality class of continuous phase transition is of central importance in condensed matter physics. In one spatial dimension, the universal properties are encoded in the conformal field theory (CFT), which is in turn specified by the conformal data. In this thesis, we propose a systematic method to extract complete and accurate conformal data from the critical quantum spin chain based on the operator-state correspondence, thus completing the project initiated by Cardy and others in the 80's. \n \nOur method is based on the low-energy eigenstates of the critical quantum spin chain with periodic boundary conditions. First, scaling dimensions and conformal spins are extracted by the energies and momenta. Second, the primary states and conformal towers are identified by using the Koo-Saleur lattice Virasoro generators. Third, we propose a systematic way of identifying lattice operators with CFT operators, which enables us to compute operator product expansion coefficients from the low-energy eigenstates. Finally, the whole approach is generalized to critical quantum spin chains with antiperiodic boundary condition. In order to reduce finite-size corrections, we put forward the periodic uniform matrix product state (puMPS) algorithm which enables us to compute low-energy eigenstates of a critical quantum spin chain up to several hundreds of spins. Our method also enables us to study nonperturbatively the renormalization group flow between two CFTs as well as explore the emergence of extended symmetries beyond conformal symmetry. \n \nWe test our method with the Ising model and its generalization due to O'Brien and Fendley. The latter model is featured by a tricritical point described by the tricritical Ising CFT and a line of critical points interpolating between the Ising CFT and the tricritical Ising CFT. We extract complete conformal data from the two models and find excellent agreement with analytical results. Furthermore, we study the spectral renormalization group flow between the two CFTs nonperturbatively. At the tricritical point, the underlying CFT has an extended symmetry, the superconformal symmetry. We propose lattice operators that correspond to supervirasoro generators and verify their action on low-energy eigenstates. In this way we study the emergence of superconformal symmetry in critical quantum spin chains.