Free Fermion System Research Articles

Speed limits to fluctuation dynamics

Fluctuation dynamics of an experimentally measured observable offer a primary signal for nonequilibrium systems, along with dynamics of the mean. While universal speed limits for the mean have actively been studied recently, constraints for the speed of the fluctuation have been elusive. Here, we develop a theory concerning rigorous limits to the rate of fluctuation growth. We find a principle that the speed of an observable’s fluctuation is upper bounded by the fluctuation of an appropriate observable describing velocity, which also indicates a tradeoff relation between the changes for the mean and fluctuation. We demonstrate the advantages of our inequalities for processes with non-negligible dispersion of observables, quantum work extraction, and the entanglement growth in free fermionic systems. Our results open an avenue toward a quantitative theory of fluctuation dynamics in various non-equilibrium systems encompassing quantum many-body systems and nonlinear population dynamics.

Quantum entanglement and non-Hermiticity in free-fermion systems

Abstract This topical review article reports rapid progress on the generalization and application of entanglement in non-Hermitian free-fermion quantum systems. We begin by examining the realization of non-Hermitian quantum systems through the Lindblad master equation, alongside a review of typical non-Hermitian free-fermion systems that exhibit unique features. A pedagogical discussion is provided on the relationship between entanglement quantities and the correlation matrix in Hermitian systems. Building on this foundation, we focus on how entanglement concepts are extended to non-Hermitian systems from their Hermitian free-fermion counterparts, with a review of the general properties that emerge. Finally, we highlight various concrete studies, demonstrating that entanglement entropy remains a powerful diagnostic tool for characterizing non-Hermitian physics. The entanglement spectrum also reflects the topological characteristics of non-Hermitian topological systems, while unique non-Hermitian entanglement behaviors are also discussed. The review is concluded with several future directions. Through this review, we hope to provide a useful guide for researchers who are interested in entanglement in non-Hermitian quantum systems.

Multiple crossings during dynamical symmetry restoration and implications for the quantum Mpemba effect

Abstract Local relaxation after a quench in 1D quantum many-body systems is a well-known and very active problem with rich phenomenology. Except in pathological cases, the local relaxation is accompanied by the local restoration of the symmetries broken by the initial state that are preserved by unitary evolution. Recently, the entanglement asymmetry has been introduced as a probe to study the interplay between symmetry breaking and relaxation in an extended quantum system. In particular, using the entanglement asymmetry, it has been shown that the more a symmetry is initially broken, the faster it may be restored. This surprising effect, which has also been observed in trapped-ion experiments, can be seen as a quantum version of the Mpemba effect, and is manifested by the crossing at a finite time of the entanglement asymmetry curves of two different initial symmetry-breaking configurations. In this paper we show that, by tuning the initial state, the symmetry dynamics in free fermionic systems can display much richer behavior than seen previously. In particular, for certain classes of initial states, including the ground states of free fermionic models with long-range couplings, the entanglement asymmetry can exhibit multiple crossings. This illustrates that the existence of the quantum Mpemba effect can only be inferred by examining the late-time behavior of the entanglement asymmetry.

Quasiprobabilities in Quantum Thermodynamics and Many-Body Systems

In this tutorial, we present the definition, interpretation, and properties of some of the main quasiprobabilities that can describe the statistics of measurement outcomes evaluated at two or more times. Such statistics incorporate the incompatibility of the measurement observables and the state of the measured quantum system. We particularly focus on Kirkwood-Dirac quasiprobabilities and related distributions. We also discuss techniques to experimentally access a quasiprobability distribution, ranging from the weak two-point measurement scheme, to a Ramsey-like interferometric scheme and procedures assisted by an external detector. Once defined the fundamental concepts following the standpoint of joint measurability in quantum mechanics, we illustrate the use of quasiprobabilities in quantum thermodynamics to describe the quantum statistics of work and heat, and to explain anomalies in the energy exchanges entailed by a given thermodynamic transformation. On the one hand, in work protocols, we show how absorbed energy can be converted to extractable work and vice versa due to Hamiltonian incompatibility at distinct times. On the other hand, in exchange processes between two quantum systems initially at different temperatures, we explain how quantum correlations in their initial state may induce cold-to-hot energy exchanges, which are unnatural between any pair of equilibrium nondriven systems. We conclude the tutorial by giving simple examples where quasiprobabilities are applied to many-body systems: scrambling of quantum information, sensitivity to local perturbations, and quantum work statistics in the quenched dynamics of models that can be mapped onto systems of free fermions, for instance, the Ising model with a transverse field. Throughout the tutorial, we meticulously present derivations of essential concepts alongside straightforward examples, aiming to enhance comprehension and facilitate learning. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Adiabatic gauge potential and integrability breaking with free fermions

We revisit the problem of integrability breaking in free fermionic quantum spin chains. We investigate the so-called adiabatic gauge potential (AGP), which was recently proposed as an accurate probe of quantum chaos. We also study the so-called weak integrability breaking, which occurs if the dynamical effects of the perturbation do not appear at leading order in the perturbing parameter. A recent statement in the literature claimed that integrability breaking should generally lead to an exponential growth of the AGP norm with respect to the volume. However, afterwards it was found that weak integrability breaking is a counter-example, leading to a cross-over between polynomial and exponential growth. Here we show that in free fermionic systems the AGP norm always grows polynomially, if the perturbation is local with respect to the fermions, even if the perturbation strongly breaks integrability. As a by-product of our computations we also find, that in free fermionic spin chains there are operators which weakly break integrability, but which are not associated with known long range deformations.

Dynamical Transition Due to Feedback-Induced Skin Effect.

The traditional dynamical phase transition refers to the appearance of singularities in an observable with respect to a control parameter for a late-time state or singularities in the rate function of the Loschmidt echo with respect to time. Here, we study the many-body dynamics in a continuously monitored free fermion system with conditional feedback under open boundary conditions. We surprisingly find a novel dynamical transition from a logarithmic scaling of the entanglement entropy to an area-law scaling as time evolves. The transition, which is noticeably different from the conventional dynamical phase transition, arises from the competition between the bulk dynamics and boundary skin effects. In addition, we find that while quasidisorder or disorder cannot drive a transition for the steady state, a transition occurs for the maximum entanglement entropy during the time evolution, which agrees well with the entanglement transition for the steady state of the dynamics under periodic boundary conditions.

Entanglement asymmetry and quantum Mpemba effect in two-dimensional free-fermion systems

Entanglement asymmetry and quantum Mpemba effect in two-dimensional free-fermion systems

Information scrambling in free fermion systems with a sole interaction

Information scrambling in free fermion systems with a sole interaction

Unscrambling of single-particle wave functions in systems localized through disorder and monitoring

In systems undergoing localization-delocalization quantum phase transitions due to disorder or monitoring, there is a crucial need for robust methods capable of distinguishing phases and uncovering their intrinsic properties. In this paper, we develop a process of finding a Slater determinant representation of free-fermion wave functions that accurately characterizes localized particles, a procedure we dub “unscrambling.” The central idea is to minimize the overlap between envelopes of single-particle wave functions or, equivalently, to maximize the inverse participation ratio of each orbital. This numerically efficient methodology can differentiate between distinct types of wave functions: exponentially localized, power-law localized, and conformal critical, also revealing the underlying physics of these states. The method is readily extendable to systems in higher dimensions. Furthermore, we apply this approach to a more challenging problem involving disordered monitored free fermions in one dimension, where the unscrambling process unveils the presence of a conformal critical phase and a localized area-law quantum Zeno phase. Importantly, our method can also be extended to free fermion systems without particle number conservation, which we demonstrate by estimating the phase diagram of Z2-symmetric disordered monitored free fermions. Our results unlock the potential of utilizing single-particle wave functions to gain valuable insights into the localization transition properties in systems such as monitored free fermions and disordered models. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Hawking-Page transition on a spin chain

The accessibility of the Hawking-Page transition in AdS5 through a one-dimensional (1D) Heisenberg spin chain is demonstrated. We use the random matrix formulation of the Loschmidt echo for a set of spin chains, and randomize the ferromagnetic spin interaction. It is shown that the thermal Loschmidt echo, when averaged, detects the predicted increase in entropy across the Hawking-Page transition. This suggests that a 1D spin chain exhibits characteristics of black hole physics in 4+1 dimensions. We show that this approach is equally applicable to free fermion systems with a general dispersion relation. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Entanglement Entropy of Free Fermions with a Random Matrix as a One-Body Hamiltonian.

We consider a quantum system of large size N and its subsystem of size L, assuming that N is much larger than L, which can also be sufficiently large, i.e., 1≪L≲N. A widely accepted mathematical version of this inequality is the asymptotic regime of successive limits: first the macroscopic limit N→∞, then an asymptotic analysis of the entanglement entropy as L→∞. In this paper, we consider another version of the above inequality: the regime of asymptotically proportional L and N, i.e., the simultaneous limits L→∞,N→∞,L/N→λ>0. Specifically, we consider a system of free fermions that is in its ground state, and such that its one-body Hamiltonian is a large random matrix, which is often used to model long-range hopping. By using random matrix theory, we show that in this case, the entanglement entropy obeys the volume law known for systems with short-range hopping but described either by a mixed state or a pure strongly excited state of the Hamiltonian. We also give streamlined proof of Page's formula for the entanglement entropy of black hole radiation for a wide class of typical ground states, thereby proving the universality and the typicality of the formula.

Many-body quantum heat engines based on free fermion systems

Many-body quantum heat engines based on free fermion systems

Large black hole entropy from the giant brane expansion

We show that the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of large supersymmetric black holes in AdS5 × S5 emerges from remarkable cancellations in the giant graviton expansions recently proposed by Imamura, and Gaiotto and Lee, independently. A similar cancellation mechanism is shown to happen in the exact expansion in terms of free fermions recently put-forward by Murthy. These two representations can be understood as sums over independent systems of giant D3-branes and free fermions, respectively. At large charges, the free energy of each independent system localizes to its asymptotic expansion near the leading singularity. The sum over the independent systems maps their localized free energy to the localized free energy of the superconformal index of U(N) \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\mathcal{N}$$\\end{document} = 4 SYM. This result constitutes a non-perturbative test of the giant graviton expansion valid at any value of N. Moreover, in the holographic scaling limit N → ∞ at fixed ratio \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\frac{{\ ext{Entropy}}}{{N}^{2}}$$\\end{document}, it recovers the 1/16 BPS black hole entropy by a saddle-point approximation of the giant graviton expansion.

Time evolution of entanglement entropy after quenches in two-dimensional free fermion systems: A dimensional reduction treatment

Time evolution of entanglement entropy after quenches in two-dimensional free fermion systems: A dimensional reduction treatment

Exploring entanglement characteristics in disordered free fermion systems through random bi-partitioning

This study investigates the entanglement properties of disordered free fermion systems undergoing an Anderson phase transition from a delocalized to a localized phase. The entanglement entropy is employed to quantify the degree of entanglement, with the system randomly divided into two subsystems. To explore this phenomenon, one-dimensional tight-binding fermion models and Anderson models in one, two, and three dimensions are utilized. Comprehensive numerical calculations reveal that the entanglement entropy, determined using random bi-partitioning, follows a volume-law scaling in both the delocalized and localized phases, expressed as [Formula: see text], where D represents the dimension of the system. Furthermore, the role of short and long-range correlations in the entanglement entropy and the impact of the distribution of subsystem sites are analyzed.

Entanglement Rényi entropies from ballistic fluctuation theory: The free fermionic case

The large-scale behaviour of entanglement entropy in finite-density states, in and out of equilibrium, can be understood using the physical picture of particle pairs. However, the full theoretical origin of this picture is not fully established yet. In this work, we clarify this picture by investigating entanglement entropy using its connection with the large-deviation theory for thermodynamic and hydrodynamic fluctuations. We apply the universal framework of Ballistic Fluctuation Theory (BFT), based the Euler hydrodynamics of the model, to correlation functions of branch-point twist fields, the starting point for computing Rényi entanglement entropies within the replica approach. Focusing on free fermionic systems in order to illustrate the ideas, we show that both the equilibrium behavior and the dynamics of Rényi entanglement entropies can be fully derived from the BFT. In particular, we emphasise that long-range correlations develop after quantum quenches, and accounting for these explain the structure of the entanglement growth. We further show that this growth is related to fluctuations of charge transport, generalising to quantum quenches the relation between charge fluctuations and entanglement observed earlier. The general ideas we introduce suggest that the large-scale behaviour of entanglement has its origin within hydrodynamic fluctuations.

Exact Correlations in Topological Quantum Chains

Although free-fermion systems are considered exactly solvable, they generically do not admit closed expressions for nonlocal quantities such as topological string correlations or entanglement measures. We derive closed expressions for such quantities for a dense subclass of certain classes of topological fermionic wires (classes BDI and AIII). Our results also apply to spin chains called generalised cluster models. While there is a bijection between general models in these classes and Laurent polynomials, restricting to polynomials with degenerate zeros leads to a plethora of exact results: (1) we derive closed expressions for the string correlation functions - the order parameters for the topological phases in these classes; (2) we obtain an exact formula for the characteristic polynomial of the correlation matrix, giving insight into ground state entanglement; (3) the latter implies that the ground state can be described by a matrix product state (MPS) with a finite bond dimension in the thermodynamic limit - an independent and explicit construction for the BDI class is given in a concurrent work [Phys. Rev. Res. 3 (2021), 033265, 26 pages, arXiv:2105.12143]; (4) for BDI models with even integer topological invariant, all non-zero eigenvalues of the transfer matrix are identified as products of zeros and inverse zeros of the aforementioned polynomial. General models in these classes can be obtained by taking limits of the models we analyse, giving a further application of our results. To the best of our knowledge, these results constitute the first application of Day's formula and Gorodetsky's formula for Toeplitz determinants to many-body quantum physics.

Logarithmic negativity and spectrum in free fermionic systems for well-separated intervals

We employ a mathematical framework based on the Riemann-Hilbert approach developed by Bettelheim et al (2022 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 55 135001) to study logarithmic negativity of two intervals of free fermions in the case where the size of the intervals as well as the distance between them is macroscopic. We find that none of the eigenvalues of the density matrix become negative, but rather they develop a small imaginary value, leading to non-zero logarithmic negativity. As an example, we compute negativity at half-filling and for intervals of equal size we find a result of order , where N is the typical length scale in units of the lattice spacing. One may compute logarithmic negativity in further situations, but we find that the results are non-universal, depending non-smoothly on the Fermi level and the size of the intervals in units of the lattice spacing.

Generalized homology and Atiyah–Hirzebruch spectral sequence in crystalline symmetry protected topological phenomena

Abstract We propose that symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases with crystalline symmetry are formulated by an equivariant generalized homology $h^G_n(X)$ over a real space manifold X with G a crystalline symmetry group. The Atiyah–Hirzebruch spectral sequence unifies various notions in crystalline SPT phases, such as the layer construction, higher-order SPT phases, and Lieb–Schultz–Mattis-type theorems. This formulation is applicable to not only free fermionic systems but also interacting systems with arbitrary onsite and crystal symmetries.

Particle–hole symmetry protects spin-valley blockade in graphene quantum dots

Particle-hole symmetry plays an important role in the characterization of topological phases in solid-state systems1. It is found, for example, in free-fermion systems at half filling and it is closely related to the notion of antiparticles in relativistic field theories2. In the low-energy limit, graphene is a prime example of a gapless particle-hole symmetric system described by an effective Dirac equation3,4 in which topological phases can be understood by studying ways to open a gap by preserving (or breaking) symmetries5,6. An important example is the intrinsic Kane-Mele spin-orbit gap of graphene, which leads to a lifting of thespin-valley degeneracy and renders graphene a topological insulator in a quantumspin Hall phase7 while preserving particle-hole symmetry. Here we show that bilayer graphene allows the realization of electron-hole double quantum dots that exhibit near-perfect particle-hole symmetry, in which transport occurs via the creation and annihilation of single electron-hole pairs with opposite quantum numbers. Moreover, we show that particle-hole symmetric spin and valley textures lead to a protected single-particle spin-valley blockade. The latter will allow robust spin-to-charge and valley-to-charge conversion, which are essential for the operation of spin and valley qubits.