Non-equilibrium dynamics of charged dual-unitary circuits

Abstract

The interplay between symmetries and entanglement in out-of-equilibrium quantum systems is currently at the centre of an intense multidisciplinary research effort. Here we introduce a setting where these questions can be characterised exactly by considering dual-unitary circuits with an arbitrary number of $U(1)$ charges. After providing a complete characterisation of these systems we show that one can introduce a class of solvable states, which extends that of generic dual unitary circuits, for which the non-equilibrium dynamics can be solved exactly. In contrast to the known class of solvable states, which relax to the infinite temperature state, these states relax to a family of non-trivial generalised Gibbs ensembles. The relaxation process of these states can be simply described by a linear growth of the entanglement entropy followed by saturation to a non-maximal value but with maximal entanglement velocity. We then move on to consider the dynamics from non-solvable states, combining exact results with the entanglement membrane picture we argue that the entanglement dynamics from these states is qualitatively different from that of the solvable ones. It shows two different growth regimes characterised by two distinct slopes, both corresponding to sub-maximal entanglement velocities. Moreover, we show that non-solvable initial states can give rise to the quantum Mpemba effect, where less symmetric initial states restore the symmetry faster than more symmetric ones.