Quantum Entanglement and the Emergence of Thermalization in Isolated Many-Body Systems Exploring Information Analytics and Emergent Dynamics in Complex Quantum Systems
Quantum many-body systems exhibit highly complex interactions that give rise to emergent collective phenomena beyond the behavior of individual particles. One of the most intriguing challenges in modern quantum physics is understanding how isolated quantum systems evolve toward thermal equilibrium despite following fundamentally reversible quantum dynamics. Quantum entanglement has emerged as a central mechanism governing information propagation, thermalization, and the development of statistical equilibrium in isolated many-body systems. Simultaneously, recent advances in quantum information science have enabled researchers to investigate the relationship between entanglement dynamics, information scrambling, and emergent quantum behavior using computational and analytical approaches. This study proposes a Quantum Information Analytics Framework for investigating thermalization processes in isolated many-body quantum systems through the integration of entanglement dynamics, quantum information measures, statistical mechanics, and computational modeling. The proposed framework evaluates system evolution using multiple performance indicators, including entanglement entropy, information propagation, thermal equilibrium, quantum coherence, and computational stability. The findings indicate that quantum entanglement plays a fundamental role in driving thermalization while preserving the underlying unitary evolution of isolated quantum systems. The proposed analytical framework contributes to a deeper understanding of emergent quantum dynamics and provides valuable insights for quantum computing, quantum simulation, condensed matter physics, and next-generation quantum information technologies.
Quantum many-body systems exhibit highly complex interactions that give rise to emergent collective phenomena beyond the behavior of individual particles. One of the most intriguing challenges in modern quantum physics is understanding how isolated quantum systems evolve toward thermal equilibrium despite following fundamentally reversible quantum dynamics. Quantum entanglement has emerged as a central mechanism governing information propagation, thermalization, and the development of statistical equilibrium in isolated many-body systems. Simultaneously, recent advances in quantum information science have enabled researchers to investigate the relationship between entanglement dynamics, information scrambling, and emergent quantum behavior using computational and analytical approaches. This study proposes a Quantum Information Analytics Framework for investigating thermalization processes in isolated many-body quantum systems through the integration of entanglement dynamics, quantum information measures, statistical mechanics, and computational modeling. The proposed framework evaluates system evolution using multiple performance indicators, including entanglement entropy, information propagation, thermal equilibrium, quantum coherence, and computational stability. The findings indicate that quantum entanglement plays a fundamental role in driving thermalization while preserving the underlying unitary evolution of isolated quantum systems. The proposed analytical framework contributes to a deeper understanding of emergent quantum dynamics and provides valuable insights for quantum computing, quantum simulation, condensed matter physics, and next-generation quantum information technologies.
Statistical mechanics relies on the maximization of entropy in a system at thermal equilibrium. However, an isolated quantum many-body system initialized in a pure state remains pure during Schrödinger evolution, and in this sense it has static, zero entropy. We experimentally studied the emergence of statistical mechanics in a quantum state and observed the fundamental role of quantum entanglement in facilitating this emergence. Microscopy of an evolving quantum system indicates that the full quantum state remains pure, whereas thermalization occurs on a local scale. We directly measured entanglement entropy, which assumes the role of the thermal entropy in thermalization. The entanglement creates local entropy that validates the use of statistical physics for local observables. Our measurements are consistent with the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis.
Classical statistical mechanics relies on the ergodic hypothesis, which states that a system explores the entire allowed phase space during its time evolution. Pure quantum states are at odds with this concept as they remain in a single quantum state even if the system's parameters are suddenly altered. However, in a generic many-body system, coherent dynamics drive local thermalization of its subsystems. In this case, any local observable appears thermal and can be described by a statistical ensemble even though the full state remains pure. The key to understanding the phenomenon of quantum thermalization lies in the entanglement properties of the system: The presence of entanglement creates local entropy that validates the use of statistical physics.\nIn this thesis, we experimentally study the emergence of statistical mechanics in a quantum state and observe the fundamental role of quantum entanglement in facilitating this emergence. We perform microscopy on an evolving quantum system, and we see thermalization occur on a local scale while we measure that the full quantum state remains pure.\nThe only known robust exception from the paradigm of quantum thermalization is provided by disordered systems. In this case, the particle transport ceases through the system, preventing the formation of a sufficient amount of entanglement required for thermalization. However, if the many-body system is interacting, the state develops non-local quantum correlations that are inaccessible to any local observable. These correlations spread exponentially slowly in time throughout the entire system and are considered a hallmark feature of many-body-localized states.\nIn order to study the interplay between thermalization and localization in our system, we develop novel methods for high fidelity state preparation and readout. We achieved an exquisite isolation of our system from the environment, which allows us to monitor coherent many-body dynamics over multiple decades of time evolution.\nWe experimentally realize such a many-body localized system and observe the formation of non-local quantum correlations, while the particle transport is frozen in the system. Our work experimentally establishes many-body localization as a qualitatively distinct phenomenon from localization in non-interacting, disordered systems.
Out-of-equilibrium quantum many-body systems stand at the forefront of modern theoretical physics, addressing fundamental questions on thermalization, transport, and universal phenomena. These fields, already well established in condensed matter, statistical physics, quantum optics, and quantum information theory, are progressively gaining even greater relevance with the rapid development of quantum technologies and simulation, which inherently operate in dynamical regimes. In recent years, the traditional paradigm of unitary quantum evolution has been expanded to include measurements, opening new directions in out-of-equilibrium physics. At the core of these advances lie measurement-induced phase transitions (MIPTs), which have emerged as a new class of dynamical critical phenomena characterizing the general behavior of monitored quantum dynamics. When external monitoring intertwines with unitary evolution, many-body quantum correlations change their structure, giving rise to distinct entanglement phases of matter. This discovery has sparked enormous interest in MIPTs, leading to significant advances in open quantum systems, entanglement theory, and more broadly quantum complexity. Despite much progress, a full understanding of monitored many-body dynamics is far from complete, leaving several open questions on the nature of MIPTs, their experimental observability, and the possibilities offered by measurements to enhance control over synthetic quantum matter. These issues persist due to the intrinsic complexity of the problem and the lack of efficient tools to study it, mainly caused by the stochastic character of monitored evolution. This thesis addresses these challenges by expanding the investigation of measurement-induced phenomena in new settings and introducing innovative probes of entanglement and many-body quantum complexity for MIPTs. A core question we investigate is the role of symmetries, non-ergodicity, and especially integrability in measurement-induced criticality, which dramatically affect the non-equilibrium phases. We further explore how these phenomena extend beyond bipartite quantum correlations to multipartite entanglement and quantum non-stabilizerness, highlighting the non-trivial interplay between measurements and complexity notions rooted in quantum information theory. Finally, we focus on the compelling problem of decoherence, modeling how noise spoils entanglement structures. These findings, supported by advanced numerical simulations and theoretical analysis, deepen the current understanding of entanglement, complexity, and integrability in monitored quantum many-body systems, offering new perspectives on their rich behavior. In parallel, we address the experimental problem of dissipation in MIPTs, which is of key relevance for practical implementations. We anticipate the present investigation to foster future research on the nature of monitored dynamical critical phenomena and, more broadly, the applications of measurements in quantum state evolution.
Understanding how quantum matter behaves when driven out of equilibrium is one of the key focuses in quantum physics. Thanks to impressive progress in the control and precision achieved in quantum synthetic matter over the past decades, the nonequilibrium quantum many-body physics has become one of the most active research areas today, especially after the experimental realization of Bose-Einstein condensates and optical lattices, which allows us to directly observe and study nonequilibrium quantum matter with great accuracy and controllability. In this dissertation, I explore the rich landscape of nonequilibrium quantum many-body physics and how quantum phase transitions, both symmetry-breaking and topological, can be extended to the nonequilibrium setting. In the first part of the dissertation, I focus on spinor Bose-Einstein condensates as an isolated quantum many-body system, and reveal their various dynamical behaviors, including quantum collapse and revivals, thermalization and nonthermal equilibration with no revival even though the system has finite degrees of freedom. In contrast to typical integrable systems, which usually do not thermalize, we find that spinor condensates have a parameter range in which the system thermalizes via the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH). We show that this observation is linked to the presence of rare nonthermal states whose fraction vanishes with system size, and contributes to the notion of thermalization via weak ETH. Next, I explore a dynamical process that is complementary to thermalization in isolated quantum systems: information scrambling, which could be probed via out-of-time-order correlators (OTOC). I propose a nonintegrable, disordered and quasi-1D spin model, the ladder-XX model, for a feasible detection of information scrambling in a cold atom simulator. This chapter poses a fundamental question: "What are the signatures of quantum phases and phase transitions in isolated interacting systems driven out-of-equilibrium?" I study the ladder-XX model in both clean and disordered potentials, and characterize different nonequilibrium phases, i.e., ergodic and many-body localized, of the model based on the decay properties of OTOCs. Emergent light cone shows sublinear behavior, while the butterfly cones drastically differ from the light cone by demonstrating superlinear spread of information with a velocity that is bounded by the light cone velocity. In the second part of the dissertation, I continue to search for answers to the question posed above, however this time with a particular focus on symmetry-breaking and topological quantum phase transitions. I pin down a universal mechanism underlying the relation between information scrambling at any temperature and quantum phases at low temperatures. Our method points to key ingredients to dynamically detect long-range order in gapped phases through OTOCs for symmetry-breaking quantum phase transitions and Z2 topological order associated with Majorana zero modes localized at the edges. Our results pave the way to an intriguing observation that phases of quantum matter could protect the information from scrambling and thermalization, even when the system is interacting and nonintegrable. Finally, I explore and propose utilizing short-time transient temporal regimes and single-site probes to detect the phases and phase transitions in quantum matter. These studies reveal a dynamical crossover and a dynamical phase transition, respectively for periodic and open-boundary chains. In both cases, a nonequilibrium scaling law appears in the vicinity of the crossover/transition with associated exponents that differ from the analytical predictions for long times. Feasibility of detecting such dynamical criticality in experimental systems are discussed.
Statistical mechanics characterizes systems in or near equilibrium using in terms of a handful of "state" variables, e.g. temperature, rather than infinitely many degrees of freedom. Statistical physics describes the expansion of the early universe, aspects of black holes, and most fruitfully, phases of matter and their properties. Quantum considerations have improved this understanding over time and revealed new phenomena, especially in complicated "strongly correlated" systems. Topological phases of matter, e.g., are of both fundamental and practical interest: these phases cannot be distinguished locally, unlike ice and water, which also allows them to store and process quantum information in a "fault-tolerant" manner, recently proposed for application to quantum computation. However, above zero temperature, thermal effects can overwrite this information.Recent experiments on isolated systems have raised fundamental questions and revealed new routes to quantum computing. We now know that entanglement, generated dynamically as a quantum state evolves, "hides" local information about the past, producing familiar equilibrium states, described by a temperature. However, many systems do not thermalize: strong disorder can lead to MBL, which supports numerous phenomena forbidden in equilibrium and can protect quantum information at infinite temperature. In particular, both MBL and thermal systems are robust phases of matter, with a novel, athermal phase transition between them. This thesis begins with an overview of MBL and thermalization, followed by an overview of exactly soluble quantum systems. We then turn to an important result in the field by this author: we introduce the first nontrivial example of an integrable Floquet model and comment on its solution and salient features. We then discuss how integrable models can provide insight into quantum thermalization, e.g. in terms of entanglement growth and demonstrating that conserved charges diffuse. We then investigate thermalization away from the integrable limit, also known as "quantum chaos." We review the standard techniques in this field and, briefly, several important results, before reproducing work by this author establishing definitively the long-conjectured result that the onset of thermalization in the presence of a conserved charge is governed by diffusion of said charge. We then investigate the interplay of conventional and topological order with nonequilibrium phase structure, with applications to quantum computation in mind. We review localization-protected quantum order in several models. We then investigate two models with non-Abelian symmetry, and show that MBL in such models can only realize if the symmetry breaks spontaneously to an Abelian subgroup. Finally, we conclude by examining open quantum systems, where we find several counterintuitive results that show that baths can, in some cases, enhance localization in certain systems, which may have use in realizing quantum computation.
One of the fundamental problems of quantum statistical physics is how an ideally isolated quantum system can ever reach thermal equilibrium behavior despite the unitary time evolution of quantum-mechanical systems. Here, we study, via explicit time evolution for the generic model system of an interacting, trapped Bose gas with discrete single-particle levels, how the measurement of one or more observables subdivides the system into observed and non-observed Hilbert subspaces and the tracing over the non-measured quantum numbers defines an effective, thermodynamic bath, induces the entanglement of the observed Hilbert subspace with the bath, and leads to a bi-exponential approach of the entanglement entropy and of the measured observables to thermal equilibrium behavior as a function of time. We find this to be more generally fulfilled than in the scenario of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), namely for both local particle occupation numbers and non-local density correlation functions, and independent of the specific initial quantum state of the time evolution.