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Power-law entanglement growth from typical product states

Talía L. M. Lezama, David J. Luitz

Published Nov 1, 2019• 20 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Generic quantum many-body systems typically show a linear growth of the entanglement entropy after a quench from a product state. While entanglement is a property of the wave function, it is generated by the unitary time-evolution operator and is therefore reflected in its increasing complexity as quantified by the operator entanglement entropy. Using numerical simulations of a static and a periodically driven quantum spin chain, we show that there is a robust correspondence between the entanglement entropy growth of typical product states and the operator entanglement entropy of the unitary evolution operator, while special product states, e.g., σz basis states, can exhibit faster entanglement production. In the presence of a disordered magnetic field in our spin chains, we show that both the wave function and operator entanglement entropies exhibit a power-law growth with the same disorder-dependent exponent and clarify the apparent discrepancy in previous results. These systems, in the absence of conserved densities, provide further evidence for slow information spreading on the ergodic side of the many-body localization transition.

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Generic quantum many-body systems typically show a linear growth of the entanglement entropy after a quench from a product state. While entanglement is a property of the wave function, it is generated by the unitary time-evolution operator and is therefore reflected in its increasing complexity as quantified by the operator entanglement entropy. Using numerical simulations of a static and a periodically driven quantum spin chain, we show that there is a robust correspondence between the entanglement entropy growth of typical product states and the operator entanglement entropy of the unitary evolution operator, while special product states, e.g., σz basis states, can exhibit faster entanglement production. In the presence of a disordered magnetic field in our spin chains, we show that both the wave function and operator entanglement entropies exhibit a power-law growth with the same disorder-dependent exponent and clarify the apparent discrepancy in previous results. These systems, in the absence of conserved densities, provide further evidence for slow information spreading on the ergodic side of the many-body localization transition.
This article studies entanglement in generic disordered systems and compares the growth of the wave function entanglement with that of the operator entanglement of the unitary evolution operator. The authors find that there is a perfect correspondence between the two when the former is generated from typical initial states, while other initial product states exhibit faster entanglement production. This provides evidence that slow dynamics is a universal precursor of the many-body localization transition.
The non-equilibrium dynamics of disordered many-body quantum systems after a global quantum quench unveils important insights about the competition between interactions and disorder, yielding in particular an insightful perspective on many body localization (MBL). Still, the experimentally relevant effect of bond randomness in long-range interacting spin chains on the quantum quench dynamics have so far not been investigated. In this letter, we examine the entanglement entropy growth after a global quench in a quantum spin chain with randomly placed spins and long-range tunable interactions decaying with distance with power ααα. Using a dynamical version of the strong disorder renormalization group (SDRG) we find for α>αcα>α_cα>αc​ that the entanglement entropy grows logarithmically with time and becomes smaller with larger ααα as S(t)=Spln⁡(t)/(2α)S(t) = S_p \ln(t)/(2α)S(t)=Sp​ln(t)/(2α). Here, Sp=2ln⁡2−1S_p= 2 \ln2 -1Sp​=2ln2−1. We use numerical exact diagonalization (ED) simulations to verify our results for system sizes up to $ N\sim 16$ spins, yielding good agreement for sufficiently large α>αc≈1.8α> α_c \approx 1.8α>αc​≈1.8. For α<αcα<α_cα<αc​, we find that the entanglement entropy grows as a power-law with time, S(t)∼tγ(α)S(t)\sim t^{γ(α)}S(t)∼tγ(α) with 0<γ(α)<10<γ(α)<10<γ(α)<1 a decaying function of the interaction exponent ααα.
We give a detailed theory for the leading coarse-grained dynamics of entanglement entropy of states and of operators in generic short-range interacting quantum many-body systems. This includes operators spreading under Heisenberg time evolution, which we find are much less entangled than "typical" operators of the same spatial support. Extending previous conjectures based on random circuit dynamics, we provide evidence that the leading-order entanglement dynamics of a given chaotic system are determined by a function E(v)\mathcal{E}(v)E(v), which is model-dependent, but which we argue satisfies certain general constraints. In a minimal membrane picture, E(v)\mathcal{E}(v)E(v) is the "surface tension" of the membrane and is a function of the membrane's orientation vvv in spacetime. For one-dimensional (1D) systems this surface tension is related by a Legendre transformation to an entanglement entropy growth rate Γ(∂S/∂x)Γ(\partial S/\partial x)Γ(∂S/∂x) which depends on the spatial "gradient" of the entanglement entropy S(x,t)S(x,t)S(x,t) across the cut at position xxx. We show how to extract the entanglement growth functions numerically in 1D at infinite temperature using the concept of the operator entanglement of the time evolution operator, and we discuss possible universality of E\mathcal{E}E at low temperatures. Our theoretical ideas are tested against and informed by numerical results for a quantum-chaotic 1D spin Hamiltonian. These results are relevant to the broad class of chaotic many-particle systems or field theories with spatially local interactions, both in 1D and above.
The nonequilibrium dynamics of disordered many-body quantum systems after a quantum quench unveils important insights about the competition between interactions and disorder, yielding, in particular, an interesting perspective toward the understanding of many-body localization. Still, the experimentally relevant effect of bond randomness in long-range interacting spin chains on their dynamical properties have so far not been investigated. In this Letter, we examine the entanglement entropy growth after a global quench in a quantum spin chain with randomly placed spins and long-range tunable interactions decaying with distance with power $\ensuremath{\alpha}$. Using a dynamical version of the strong disorder renormalization group we find for $\ensuremath{\alpha}>{\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{c}$ that the entanglement entropy grows logarithmically with time and becomes smaller with larger $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ as $S(t)={S}_{p}ln(t)/(2\ensuremath{\alpha})$. Here, ${S}_{p}=2ln2\ensuremath{-}1$. We present results of numerical exact diagonalization calculations for system sizes up to $N\ensuremath{\sim}16$ spins, in good agreement with the analytical results for sufficiently large $\ensuremath{\alpha}>{\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{c}\ensuremath{\approx}1.8$. For $\ensuremath{\alpha}<{\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{c}$, we find that the entanglement entropy grows as a power law with time, $S(t)\ensuremath{\sim}{t}^{\ensuremath{\gamma}(\ensuremath{\alpha})}$ with $0<\ensuremath{\gamma}(\ensuremath{\alpha})<1$ a decaying function of the interaction exponent $\ensuremath{\alpha}$.
Entanglement entropy is a widely applicable indicator of the onset of quantum chaos. In particular, the entanglement entropy of the wave function after a quench from an initial state with low entanglement can be used to study the thermalization of the system. Here, the authors propose an initial-state independent quantity called the ``operator entanglement entropy'' (opEE) to extract the properties of the unitary evolution operator. They study the growth of the opEE in Floquet, chaotic, and many-body localized systems. They respectively have a linear, power-law, and logarithmic growth before reaching extensive saturation values. The most chaotic Floquet spin model has the maximal saturation value among the three classes and is identical to the value of a random unitary operator (the Page value). The authors interpret the opEE as the state EE of a quenched state living in a doubled Hilbert space, thus establishing its consistency with the existing state EE results. They conclude that the EE of the evolution operator should characterize the propagation of information in these systems.
Understanding how complex entanglement structures emerge is a central problem in quantum many-body physics. Recent work by Zhang et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 020404 (2026)] has considered structured initial states prepared by evolving a product state under a chaotic Hamiltonian for a finite time before quenching to the target Hamiltonian. In this setup, total entanglement entropy growth in many-body localized systems exhibits two distinct regimes, first increasing and then decreasing as the initial entanglement is tuned. In this work, we identify the physical origin of this behavior by analyzing the dynamics of both the Rényi entanglement entropy and the Wehrl-Rényi entropy in the random-field XXZ model, the latter of which characterizes multipartite entanglement. We show that a similar non-monotonic dependence on the initial entanglement also appears in the net growth of the Wehrl-Rényi entropy for product states polarized along the zzz-direction. The first regime is governed by a finite magnetization associated with local integrals of motion, while the second reflects inter-site correlations. In contrast, for product states in the x/yx/yx/y-direction, the entanglement growth exhibits a monotonic decay. Our results provide a more fine-grained picture of how distinct initial-state properties shape entanglement dynamics in many-body localized systems.