Diagonal Ensemble Research Articles

On the practical usefulness of the Hardware Efficient Ansatz

Variational Quantum Algorithms (VQAs) and Quantum Machine Learning (QML) models train a parametrized quantum circuit to solve a given learning task. The success of these algorithms greatly hinges on appropriately choosing an ansatz for the quantum circuit. Perhaps one of the most famous ansatzes is the one-dimensional layered Hardware Efficient Ansatz (HEA), which seeks to minimize the effect of hardware noise by using native gates and connectives. The use of this HEA has generated a certain ambivalence arising from the fact that while it suffers from barren plateaus at long depths, it can also avoid them at shallow ones. In this work, we attempt to determine whether one should, or should not, use a HEA. We rigorously identify scenarios where shallow HEAs should likely be avoided (e.g., VQA or QML tasks with data satisfying a volume law of entanglement). More importantly, we identify a Goldilocks scenario where shallow HEAs could achieve a quantum speedup: QML tasks with data satisfying an area law of entanglement. We provide examples for such scenario (such as Gaussian diagonal ensemble random Hamiltonian discrimination), and we show that in these cases a shallow HEA is always trainable and that there exists an anti-concentration of loss function values. Our work highlights the crucial role that input states play in the trainability of a parametrized quantum circuit, a phenomenon that is verified in our numerics.

Quantum chaos and thermalization in the two-mode Dicke model

We discuss the onset of quantum chaos and thermalization in the two-mode Dicke model, which describes the dipolar interaction between an ensemble of spins and two bosonic modes. The two-mode Dicke model exhibits normal to superradiant quantum phase transition with spontaneous breaking either of a discrete or continuous symmetry. We study the behaviour of the fidelity out-of-time-order correlator (FOTOC) derived from the Loschmidt echo signal in the quantum phases of the model. We show that the exponential growth of the FOTOC in the beginning of the time evolution cannot be related to a classical unstable point in the general case. Furthermore, we find that the collective spin observable in the two-mode Dicke model quickly saturates to its long-time average value, and shows very good agreement between its diagonal ensemble average and microcanonical average even for a small number of spins. We show that the temporal fluctuations of the expectation value of the collective spin observable around its average are small and decrease with the effective system size, which leads to thermalization of the spin system.

Statistical complexity and the road to equilibrium in many-body chaotic quantum systems.

In this work we revisit the problem of equilibration in isolated many-body interacting quantum systems. We pay particular attention to quantum chaotic Hamiltonians, and rather than focusing on the properties of the asymptotic states and how they adhere to the predictions of the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis, we focus on the equilibration process itself, i.e., the road to equilibrium. Along the road to equilibrium the diagonal ensembles obey an emergent form of the second law of thermodynamics and we provide an information theoretic proof of this fact. With this proof at hand we show that the road to equilibrium is nothing but a hierarchy in time of diagonal ensembles. Furthermore, introducing the notions of statistical complexity and the entropy-complexity plane, we investigate the uniqueness of the road to equilibrium in a generic many-body system by comparing its trajectories in the entropy-complexity plane to those generated by a random Hamiltonian. Finally, by treating the random Hamiltonian as a perturbation we analyzed the stability of entropy-complexity trajectories associated with the road to equilibrium for a chaotic Hamiltonian and different types of initial states.

Measuring postquench entanglement entropy through density correlations

Following a sudden change of interactions in an integrable system of one-dimensional fermions, we analyze the dependence of the static structure factor on the observation time after the quantum quench. At small waiting times after the quench, we map the system to noninteracting bosons such that we are able to extract their occupation numbers from the Fourier transform of the density-density correlation function, and use these to compute a bosonic entropy from a diagonal ensemble. By comparing this bosonic entropy with the asymptotic steady-state entanglement entropy per fermion computed with exact diagonalization, we find excellent agreement.Received 8 December 2021Revised 17 March 2022Accepted 22 March 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.L022023Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasBosonizationCharge density wavesEntanglement entropyQuantum quenchTechniquesExact diagonalizationLuttinger liquid modelCondensed Matter, Materials & Applied PhysicsQuantum InformationStatistical Physics

Prethermalization, thermalization, and Fermi's golden rule in quantum many-body systems

We study the prethermalization and thermalization dynamics of local observables in weakly perturbed nonintegrable systems, with Hamiltonians of the form $\hat{H}_0+g\hat{V}$, where $\hat{H}_0$ is nonintegrable and $g\hat{V}$ is a perturbation. We explore the dynamics of far from equilibrium initial states in the thermodynamic limit using a numerical linked cluster expansion (NLCE), and in finite systems with periodic boundaries using exact diagonalization. We argue that generic observables exhibit a two-step relaxation process, with a fast prethermal dynamics followed by a slow thermalizing one, only if the perturbation breaks a conserved quantity of $\hat{H}_0$ and if the value of the conserved quantity in the initial state is $\mathcal{O}(1)$ different from the one after thermalization. We show that the slow thermalizing dynamics is characterized by a rate $\propto g^2$, which can be accurately determined using a Fermi golden rule (FGR) equation. We also show that during such a slow dynamics, observables can be described using projected diagonal and Gibbs ensembles, and we contrast their accuracy.

Isospectral Twirling and Quantum Chaos.

We show that the most important measures of quantum chaos, such as frame potentials, scrambling, Loschmidt echo and out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs), can be described by the unified framework of the isospectral twirling, namely the Haar average of a k-fold unitary channel. We show that such measures can then always be cast in the form of an expectation value of the isospectral twirling. In literature, quantum chaos is investigated sometimes through the spectrum and some other times through the eigenvectors of the Hamiltonian generating the dynamics. We show that thanks to this technique, we can interpolate smoothly between integrable Hamiltonians and quantum chaotic Hamiltonians. The isospectral twirling of Hamiltonians with eigenvector stabilizer states does not possess chaotic features, unlike those Hamiltonians whose eigenvectors are taken from the Haar measure. As an example, OTOCs obtained with Clifford resources decay to higher values compared with universal resources. By doping Hamiltonians with non-Clifford resources, we show a crossover in the OTOC behavior between a class of integrable models and quantum chaos. Moreover, exploiting random matrix theory, we show that these measures of quantum chaos clearly distinguish the finite time behavior of probes to quantum chaos corresponding to chaotic spectra given by the Gaussian Unitary Ensemble (GUE) from the integrable spectra given by Poisson distribution and the Gaussian Diagonal Ensemble (GDE).

Quantum dynamics in the interacting Fibonacci chain

Quantum dynamics on quasiperiodic geometries has recently gathered significant attention in ultra-cold atom experiments where non trivial localised phases have been observed. One such quasiperiodic model is the so called Fibonacci model. In this tight-binding model, non-interacting particles are subject to on-site energies generated by a Fibonacci sequence. This is known to induce critical states, with a continuously varying dynamical exponent, leading to anomalous transport. In this work, we investigate whether anomalous diffusion present in the non-interacting system survives in the presence of interactions and establish connections to a possible transition towards a localized phase. We investigate the dynamics of the interacting Fibonacci model by studying real-time spread of density-density correlations at infinite temperature using the dynamical typicality approach. We also corroborate our findings by calculating the participation entropy in configuration space and investigating the expectation value of local observables in the diagonal ensemble.

Work statistics and symmetry breaking in an excited-state quantum phase transition

We examine how the presence of an excited-state quantum phase transition manifests in the dynamics of a many-body system subject to a sudden quench. Focusing on the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model initialized in the ground state of the ferromagnetic phase, we demonstrate that the work probability distribution displays non-Gaussian behavior for quenches in the vicinity of the excited-state critical point. Furthermore, we show that the entropy of the diagonal ensemble is highly susceptible to critical regions, making it a robust and practical indicator of the associated spectral characteristics. We assess the role that symmetry breaking has on the ensuing dynamics, highlighting that its effect is only present for quenches beyond the critical point. Finally, we show that similar features persist when the system is initialized in an excited state and briefly explore the behavior for initial states in the paramagnetic phase.

Random matrix theory of the isospectral twirling

We present a systematic construction of probes into the dynamics of isospectral ensembles of Hamiltonians by the notion of Isospectral twirling, expanding the scopes and methods of ref. [1]. The relevant ensembles of Hamiltonians are those defined by salient spectral probability distributions. The Gaussian Unitary Ensembles (GUE) describes a class of quantum chaotic Hamiltonians, while spectra corresponding to the Poisson and Gaussian Diagonal Ensemble (GDE) describe non chaotic, integrable dynamics. We compute the Isospectral twirling of several classes of important quantities in the analysis of quantum many-body systems: Frame potentials, Loschmidt Echos, OTOCs, Entanglement, Tripartite mutual information, coherence, distance to equilibrium states, work in quantum batteries and extension to CP-maps. Moreover, we perform averages in these ensembles by random matrix theory and show how these quantities clearly separate chaotic quantum dynamics from non chaotic ones.

Approximating the long time average of the density operator: Diagonal ensemble

For an isolated generic quantum system out of equilibrium, the long time average of observables is given by the diagonal ensemble, i.e. the mixed state with the same probability for energy eigenstates as the initial state but without coherences between different energies. In this work we present a method to approximate the diagonal ensemble using tensor networks. Instead of simulating the real time evolution, we adapt a filtering scheme introduced earlier in [Phys. Rev. B 101, 144305 (2020)] to this problem. We analyze the performance of the method on a non-integrable spin chain, for which we observe that local observables converge towards thermal values polynomially with the inverse width of the filter.

Construction of many-body-localized models where all the eigenstates are matrix-product-states

The inverse problem of ‘eigenstates-to-Hamiltonian’ is considered for an open chain of N quantum spins in the context of many-body-localization. We first construct the simplest basis of the Hilbert space made of 2N orthonormal matrix-product-states (MPS), that will thus automatically satisfy the entanglement area-law. We then analyze the corresponding N local integrals of motions (LIOMs) that can be considered as the local building blocks of these 2N MPS, in order to construct the parent Hamiltonians that have these 2N MPS as eigenstates. Finally we study the matrix-product-operator form of the diagonal ensemble density matrix that allows to compute long-time-averaged observables of the unitary dynamics. Explicit results are given for the memory of local observables and for the entanglement properties in operator-space, via the generalized notion of Schmidt decomposition for density matrices describing mixed states.

Numerical Verification of the Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem for Isolated Quantum Systems.

The fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT) is a hallmark of thermal equilibrium systems in the Gibbs state. We address the question whether the FDT is obeyed by isolated quantum systems in an energy eigenstate. In the framework of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, we derive the formal expression for two-time correlation functions in the energy eigenstates or in the diagonal ensemble. They satisfy the Kubo-Martin-Schwinger condition, which is the sufficient and necessary condition for the FDT, in the infinite system size limit. We also obtain the finite size correction to the FDT for finite-sized systems. With extensive numerical works for the XXZ spin chain model, we confirm our theory for the FDT and the finite size correction. Our results can serve as a guide line for an experimental study of the FDT on a finite-sized system.

Quantum Joule expansion of one-dimensional systems

We investigate the Joule expansion of nonintegrable quantum systems that contain bosons or spinless fermions in one-dimensional lattices. A barrier initially confines the particles to be in half of the system in a thermal state described by the canonical ensemble and is removed at time $t = 0$. We investigate the properties of the time-evolved density matrix, the diagonal ensemble density matrix and the corresponding canonical ensemble density matrix with an effective temperature determined by the total energy conservation using exact diagonalization. The weights for the diagonal ensemble and the canonical ensemble match well for high initial temperatures that correspond to negative effective final temperatures after the expansion. At long times after the barrier is removed, the time-evolved R\'enyi entropy of subsystems bigger than half can equilibrate to the thermal entropy with exponentially small fluctuations. The time-evolved reduced density matrix at long times can be approximated by a thermal density matrix for small subsystems. Few-body observables, like the momentum distribution function, can be approximated by a thermal expectation of the canonical ensemble with strongly suppressed fluctuations. The negative effective temperatures for finite systems go to nonnegative temperatures in the thermodynamic limit for bosons, but is a true thermodynamic effect for fermions, which is confirmed by finite temperature density matrix renormalization group calculations. We propose the Joule expansion as a way to dynamically create negative temperature states for fermion systems with repulsive interactions.

Nonequilibrium dynamics of noninteracting fermions in a trap

We consider the real-time dynamics of N noninteracting fermions in d = 1. They evolve in a trapping potential V(x), starting from the equilibrium state in a potential V0(x). We study the time evolution of the Wigner function W(x, p, t) in the phase space (x, p), and the associated kernel which encodes all correlation functions. At t = 0 the Wigner function for large N is uniform in phase space inside the Fermi volume, and vanishes at the Fermi surf over a scale eN being described by a universal scaling function related to the Airy function. We obtain exact solutions for the Wigner function, the density, and the correlations in the case of harmonic and inverse square potentials, for several V0(x). In the large-N limit, near the edges where the density vanishes, we obtain limiting kernels (of the Airy or Bessel types) that retain the form found in equilibrium, up to a time-dependent rescaling. For nonharmonic traps the evolution of the Fermi volume is more complex. Nevertheless we show that, for intermediate times, the Fermi surf is still described by the same equilibrium scaling function, with a nontrivial time- and space-dependent width which we compute analytically. We discuss the multi-time correlations and obtain their explicit scaling forms valid near the edge for the harmonic oscillator. Finally, we address the large-time limit where relaxation to the Generalized Gibbs Ensemble (GGE) was found to occur in the “classical” regime . Using the diagonal ensemble we compute the Wigner function in the quantum case (large N, fixed ℏ ) and show that it agrees with the GGE. We also obtain the higher order (nonlocal) correlations in the diagonal ensemble.

New Equilibrium Ensembles for Isolated Quantum Systems.

The unitary dynamics of isolated quantum systems does not allow a pure state to thermalize. Because of that, if an isolated quantum system equilibrates, it will do so to the predictions of the so-called “diagonal ensemble” . Building on the intuition provided by Jaynes’ maximum entropy principle, in this paper we present a novel technique to generate progressively better approximations to . As an example, we write down a hierarchical set of ensembles which can be used to describe the equilibrium physics of small isolated quantum systems, going beyond the “thermal ansatz” of Gibbs ensembles.

Fate of current, residual energy, and entanglement entropy in aperiodic driving of one-dimensional Jordan-Wigner integrable models

We investigate the dynamics of two Jordan Wigner solvable models, namely, the one dimensional chain of hard-core bosons (HCB) and the one-dimensional transverse field Ising model under coin-toss like aperiodically driven staggered on-site potential and the transverse field, respectively. It is demonstrated that both the models heat up to the infinite temperature ensemble for a minimal aperiodicity in driving. Consequently, in the case of the HCB chain, we show that the initial current generated by the application of a twist vanishes in the asymptotic limit for any driving frequency. For the transverse Ising chain, we establish that the system not only reaches the diagonal ensemble but the entanglement also attains the thermal value in the asymptotic limit following initial ballistic growth. All these findings, contrasted with that of the perfectly periodic situation, are analytically established in the asymptotic limit within an exact disorder matrix formalism developed using the uncorrelated binary nature of the coin-toss aperiodicity.

Steady-states of out-of-equlibrium inhomogeneous Richardson–Gaudin quantum integrable models in quantum optics

In this work we present numerical results for physical quantities in the steady-state obtained after a variety of product-states initial conditions are evolved unitarily, driven by the dynamics of quantum integrable models of the rational (XXX) Richardson–Gaudin family, which includes notably Tavis–Cummings models. The problem of interest here is one where a completely inhomogeneous ensemble of two-level systems (spins-1/2) are coupled to a single bosonic mode.The long-time averaged magnetisation along the z-axis as well as the bosonic occupation are evaluated in the diagonal ensemble by performing the complete sum over the full Hilbert space for small system sizes. These numerically exact results are independent of any particular choice of Hamiltonian and therefore describe general results valid for any member of this class of quantum integrable models built out of the same underlying conserved quantities.The collection of numerical results obtained can be qualitatively understood by a relaxation process for which, at infinitely strong coupling, every initial state will relax to a common state where each spin is in a maximally coherent superposition of its and states, i.e. they are in-plane polarised, and consequently the bosonic mode is also in a maximally coherent superposition of different occupation number states. This bosonic coherence being a feature of a superradiant state, we shall loosely use the term superradiant steady-state to describe it.A finite value of the coupling between the spins and the bosonic mode then leads to a long-time limit steady-state whose properties are qualitatively captured by a simple ‘dynamical’ vision in which the coupling strength plays the role of a time at which this ‘relaxation process’ towards the common strong coupling superradiant steady-state is interrupted.

THRESHOLD SELECTION BASED ON RANDOM MATRIX THEORY FOR GENE CO-EXPRESSION NETWORK

Random Matrix Theory (RMT) methods for threshold selection had only been applied in a very low number of studies aiming the construction of Gene Co-expression Networks (GCN) and several open questions remained, especially regarding the general applicability regardless the diverse data structure of gene expression data sets. Moreover, no clear methodology to follow at each step was available. Here, we show, that RMT methodology is, in fact, capable to differentiate Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble (GOE) from Gaussian Diagonal Ensemble (GDE) structure for a great number of simulated data sets and that results are similar to those obtained with the reference method of clustering coefficient.

Time-dependent generalized Gibbs ensembles in open quantum systems

Generalized Gibbs ensembles have been used as powerful tools to describe the steady state of integrable many-particle quantum systems after a sudden change of the Hamiltonian. Here we demonstrate numerically, that they can be used for a much broader class of problems. We consider integrable systems in the presence of weak perturbations which both break integrability and drive the system to a state far from equilibrium. Under these conditions, we show that the steady state and the time-evolution on long time-scales can be accurately described by a (truncated) generalized Gibbs ensemble with time-dependent Lagrange parameters, determined from simple rate equations. We compare the numerically exact time evolutions of density matrices for small systems with a theory based on block-diagonal density matrices (diagonal ensemble) and a time-dependent generalized Gibbs ensemble containing only small number of approximately conserved quantities, using the one-dimensional Heisenberg model with perturbations described by Lindblad operators as an example.

Nonadiabatic Breaking of Topological Pumping

We study Thouless pumping out of the adiabatic limit. Our findings show that despite its topological nature, this phenomenon is not generically robust to nonadiabatic effects. Indeed, we find that the Floquet diagonal ensemble value of the pumped charge shows a deviation from the topologically quantized limit which is quadratic in the driving frequency for a sudden switch on of the driving. This is reflected also in the charge pumped in a single period, which shows a nonanalytic behavior on top of an overall quadratic decrease. Exponentially small corrections are recovered only with a careful tailoring of the driving protocol. We also discuss thermal effects and the experimental feasibility of observing such a deviation.