Measurement-induced topological entanglement transitions in symmetric random quantum circuits

Abstract

We study a class of (1+1)D symmetric random quantum circuits with two competing types of measurements in addition to random unitary dynamics. The circuit exhibits a rich phase diagram involving robust symmetry-protected topological (SPT), trivial, and volume law entangled phases, where the transitions are hidden to expectation values of operators and can only be accessed through the entanglement entropy averaged over quantum trajectories. In the absence of unitary dynamics, we find a purely measurement-induced critical point with logarithmic scaling of the entanglement entropy, which we map exactly to two copies of a classical 2D percolation problem. We perform numerical simulations that indicate this transition is a tricritical point that splits into two critical lines in the presence of arbitrarily sparse unitary dynamics with an intervening volume law entangled phase. Our results show how measurements alone are sufficient to induce criticality and logarithmic entanglement scaling, and how arbitrarily sparse unitary dynamics can be sufficient to stabilize volume law entangled phases in the presence of rapid yet competing measurements.