arXiv subjects

Procolo Lucignano

Publications and source records attributed to Procolo Lucignano.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Long-lasting Topological Entanglement in a Monitored Rashba Nanowire

We study the topological properties of a monitored Rashba chain along quantum-jump trajectories, investigating the persistence of the initial topological value of the disconnected entanglement entropy (DEE). We find that the DEE persists in its topological value for a time linear in the system size, even if the dissipation acts on the boundary and affects the topological Majorana modes. The reason for this phenomenon lies in the absence of particle conservation and in the degeneracy of the topological manifold, allowing the monitoring to let the system switch between different topological states -- alternatively creating and annihilating a Majorana mode -- while producing a poisoning of finite-energy ballistically propagating quasiparticles that eventually destroy the topological entanglement structure.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Range-controlled entanglement in Lindbladian skin states of monitored fermions

Reservoir engineering can stabilize states inaccessible to unitary dynamics. Directed particle-conserving dissipation creates Lindbladian skin states, where Pauli exclusion turns edge accumulation into a many-body density imbalance. In a monitored fermion chain with tunable hopping range, we identify, within a Gaussian trajectory approximation, two finite-size scaling regimes: short-range hopping is consistent with complete skin accumulation and area-law entanglement, whereas sufficiently long-range hopping produces a finite bulk tail and effective algebraic sub-volume-law entanglement. Dissipation and coherent hopping thus jointly control skin localization and quantum entanglement, highlighting their close interconnection.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

$0-\pi$ transitions in non-Hermitian magnetic Josephson junctions

We study the transport properties of non-Hermitian magnetic Josephson junctions, considering a superconductor-quantum dot-superconductor device coupled to a ferromagnetic metallic reservoir in the presence of an external magnetic field. We focus on the $0-\pi$ transitions that occur when the equilibrium phase difference between the superconductors shifts from $\phi=0$ to $\phi=\pi$ upon increasing the magnetic field amplitude. The coupling to the environment induces spin-dependent dissipation and leads to the broadening of the junction Andreev levels. By combining Green's function calculations with an effective non-Hermitian description restricted to the sub-gap Andreev quasi-bound states, we show that dissipation shifts the $0-\pi$ transition to higher magnetic fields. Remarkably, also the relative angle between the applied field and the reservoir magnetization can be used to drive the transition, at fixed field magnitude. We demonstrate that this effect can be entirely ascribed to the behavior of the complex eigenvalues of the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. These findings highlight non-Hermiticity as a resource that can introduce new control knobs for engineering the current-phase relation in superconducting junctions.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2026

Operator delocalization in disordered spin chains via exact MPO marginals

We investigate operator delocalization in disordered one-dimensional spin chains by introducing -- besides the already known operator mass -- a complementary measure of operator complexity: the operator length. Like the operator nonstabilizerness, both these quantities are defined from the expansion of time-evolved operators in the Pauli basis. They characterize, respectively, the number of sites on which an operator acts nontrivially and the spatial extent of its support. We show that both the operator mass and length can be computed efficiently and exactly within a matrix-product-state (MPS) framework, providing direct access to their full probability distributions, without resorting to stochastic sampling. Applying this approach to the disordered XXZ spin-1/2 chain, we find sharply distinct behaviors in non-interacting and interacting regimes. In the Anderson-localized case, operator mass, length, and operator entanglement entropy rapidly saturate, signaling the absence of scrambling. By contrast, in the many-body localized (MBL) regime, for arbitrarily weak interactions, all quantities exhibit a robust logarithmic growth in time, consistent with the known logarithmic light cone of quantum-correlation propagation in MBL. We demonstrate that this behavior is quantitatively captured by an effective $\ell$-bit model and persists across system sizes accessible via tensor-network simulations.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Supercurrent from the imaginary part of the Andreev levels in non-Hermitian Josephson junctions

We investigate the electronic transport properties of a superconductor-quantum dot-superconductor Josephson junction coupled to a ferromagnetic metal reservoir in the presence of an external magnetic field. The device is described by an effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonian, whose complex eigenvalues encode the energy (real part) and the broadening (imaginary part) of the Andreev quasi-bound states. When extending the Andreev current formula to the non-Hermitian case, a novel contribution arises that is proportional to the phase derivative of the levels broadening. This term becomes particularly relevant in the presence of exceptional points (EPs) in the spectrum, but its experimental detection is not straightforward. We identify optimal Andreev spectrum configurations where this novel current contribution can be clearly highlighted, and we outline an experimental protocol for its detection. We point out that the phase dependence in the levels imaginary part originates from the breaking of a time-reversal-like symmetry. In particular, spectral configurations in the broken phase of the symmetry and without EPs can be obtained, where this novel contribution can be easily resolved. The proposed protocol would allow to probe for the first time a fingerprint of non-Hermiticity in open junctions that is not strictly related to the presence of EPs.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2025

Nonadiabatic Self-Healing of Trotter Errors in Digitized Counterdiabatic Dynamics

Trotter errors in digitized quantum dynamics arise from approximating time-ordered evolution under noncommuting Hamiltonian terms with a product formula. In the adiabatic regime, such errors are known to exhibit long-time self-healing [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{131}, 060602 (2023)], where discretization effects are effectively suppressed. Here we show that self-healing persists at finite evolution times once nonadiabatic errors induced by finite-speed ramps are compensated. Using counterdiabatic driving to cancel diabatic transitions and isolate discretization effects, we study both noninteracting and interacting spin models and characterize the finite-time scaling with the Trotter steps and the total evolution time. In the instantaneous eigenbasis of the driven Hamiltonian, the leading digital error maps to an effective harmonic perturbation whose dominant Fourier component yields an analytic upper bound on the finite-time Trotter error and reveals the phase-cancellation mechanism underlying self-healing. Our results establish finite-time self-healing as a generic feature of digitized counterdiabatic protocols, clarify its mechanism beyond the long-time adiabatic limit, and provide practical guidance for high-fidelity state preparation on gate-based quantum processors.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Classical and quantum chaotic synchronization in coupled dissipative time crystals

We investigate the dynamics of two coherently coupled dissipative time crystals. In the classical mean-field limit of infinite spin length, we identify a regime of chaotic synchronization, marked by a positive largest Lyapunov exponent and a Pearson correlation coefficient close to one. At the boundary of this regime, the Pearson coefficient varies abruptly, marking a crossover between staggered and uniform $z$-magnetization. To address finite-size quantum dynamics, we employ a quantum-trajectory approach and study the trajectory-resolved expectations of subsystem $z$-magnetizations. Their histograms over time and trajectory realizations exhibit maxima that undergo a staggered-to-uniform crossover analogous to the classical one. In analogy with the classical case, we interpret this behavior as quantum chaotic synchronization, with dissipative quantum chaos highlighted by the steady-state density matrix exhibiting Gaussian Unitary Ensemble statistics. The classical and quantum crossover points are different due to the noncommutativity of the infinite-time and infinite-spin-magnitude limits and the role played by entanglement in the quantum case, quantified via the two-subsystem entanglement entropy.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Nonstabilizerness of a Boundary Time Crystal

Boundary time crystals exhibit measurement-induced phase transitions in their steady-state entanglement, with critical behavior that depends on the particular unraveling of the Lindblad dynamics. In this work, we investigate another key measure of quantum complexity -- nonstabilizerness (or ``magic'') -- and show that it follows a markedly different pattern. Importantly, in contrast to entanglement, for large system sizes, nonstabilizerness remains invariant under different unraveling schemes -- a property we attribute to the inherent permutational symmetry of the model. Although the steady-state stabilizer entropy does not display a genuine phase transition, it exhibits a singular derivative (a cusp) at the mean-field critical point. Furthermore, we demonstrate that finite-size simulations of the average Lindblad evolution fail to capture the asymptotic behavior of nonstabilizerness in the time-crystal phase, while quantum trajectory unravelings correctly reveal its extensive scaling with system size. These findings offer insights into how different quantum resources manifest in open systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Noise Effects on Diabatic Quantum Annealing Protocols

Diabatic quantum annealing aims to mitigate the challenges posed by small energy gaps and decoherence in quantum optimization by exploiting nonadiabatic transitions. In this paper, we compare the performance of two diabatic protocols in a realistic, dissipative setting using the maximum weighted independent set problem as a test case, showing that the potential advantages of diabatic protocols are strongly reduced in the presence of dissipation. Our results highlight the importance of evaluating quantum annealing strategies under practical conditions.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Nonstabilizerness in the unitary and monitored quantum dynamics of XXZ-staggered and SYK models

We consider the quantum-state-diffusion dynamics of the XXZ-staggered spin chain, also focusing on its noninteracting XX-staggered limit, and of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. We describe the process through quantum trajectories and evaluate the nonstabilizerness (also known as ``magic'') along the trajectories, quantified through the stabilizer R\'enyi entropy (SRE). In the absence of measurements, we find that the SYK model is the only one in which the time-averaged SRE saturates the random state bound and has a scaling with the system size that is well described by the theoretical prediction for quantum chaotic systems. In the presence of measurements, we numerically find that the steady-state SRE versus the coupling strength to the environment is well fitted by a generalized Lorentzian function. The scaling of the fitting parameters with the system size suggests that the steady-state} SRE linearly increases with the system size in all the considered cases, and displays no measurement-induced quantum transition, as confirmed by the curves of the steady-state SRE versus the system size.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Andreev non-Hermitian Hamiltonian for open Josephson junctions from Green's functions

We investigate the transport properties of open Josephson junctions (JJs) through a minimal effective non-Hermitian (NH) approach derived from the equilibrium Green's function (GF) formalism. Specifically, we consider a JJ with a quantum dot barrier coupled to a normal metal reservoir. The coupling introduces an imaginary self-energy term in the JJ Hamiltonian which can be naturally accounted for in the NH formalism. While most approaches to similar problems work with the full junction Hamiltonian we propose a scheme for deriving an effective NH Hamiltonian for the Andreev levels only, that we compute from the singular part of the barrier GF. To establish the range of applicability of this NH model we benchmark our results for both the dot density of states and the supercurrent against exact GF predictions in different transport regimes. We find that, as a rule of thumb, the Andreev NH description is accurate when the spectral overlap between the Andreev bound states (ABS) and the near-gap continuum states is negligible, i.e. when the ABS energies lie sufficiently far from the superconducting gap relative to their line-width. This method not only highlights the effective physics of the JJ but also offers a scalable framework for studying large-size devices.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2024

Dynamics of edge modes in monitored Su-Schrieffer-Heeger Models

We investigate the effect of dissipation on the dynamics of edge modes in the monitored Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model. Our study considers both a linear observable and a nonlinear entanglement measure, namely the two-point correlation function and the Disconnected Entanglement Entropy (DEE), as diagnostic tools. While dissipation inevitably alters the entanglement properties observed in the closed system, statistical analysis of quantum trajectories reveals that by protecting the chain's edges from dissipation, it is possible to recover characteristic features analogous to those found in the unitary limit. This highlights the fundamental role of spatial dissipation patterns in shaping the dynamics of edge modes in monitored systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

The role of gaps in digitized counterdiabatic QAOA for fully-connected spin models

Recently, digitized-counterdiabatic (CD) corrections to the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) have been proposed, yielding faster convergence within the desired accuracy than standard QAOA. In this manuscript, we apply this approach to a fully-connected spin model with random couplings. We show that the performances of the algorithm are related to the spectral properties of the instances analyzed. In particular, the larger the gap between the ground state and the first excited states, the better the convergence to the exact solution.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Thermalization propagation front and robustness against avalanches in localized systems

We investigate the robustness of the many-body localized (MBL) phase to the quantum-avalanche instability by studying the dynamics of a localized spin chain coupled to a $T=\infty$ thermal bath through its leftmost site. By analyzing local magnetizations, we estimate the size of the thermalized sector of the chain and find that it increases logarithmically slowly in time. This logarithmically slow propagation of the thermalization front allows us to lower bound the slowest thermalization time, and find a broad parameter range where it scales fast enough with the system size that MBL is robust against thermalization induced by avalanches. The further finding that the imbalance -- a global quantity measuring localization -- thermalizes over a time scale exponential both in disorder strength and system size is in agreement with these results.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Chaos and magic in the dissipative quantum kicked top

We consider an infinite-range interacting quantum spin-1/2 model, undergoing periodic kicking and dissipatively coupled with an environment. In the thermodynamic limit, it is described by classical mean-field equations that can show regular and chaotic regimes. At finite size, we describe the system dynamics using stochastic quantum trajectories. We find that the asymptotic nonstabilizerness (alias the magic, a measure of quantum complexity), averaged over trajectories, mirrors to some extent the classical chaotic behavior, while the entanglement entropy has no relation with chaos in the thermodynamic limit.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Nonstabilizerness of Permutationally Invariant Systems

Typical measures of nonstabilizerness of a system of $N$ qubits require computing $4^N$ expectation values, one for each Pauli string in the Pauli group, over a state of dimension $2^N$. For permutationally invariant systems, this exponential overhead can be reduced to just $O(N^3)$ expectation values on a state with a dimension $O(N)$. We exploit this simplification to study the nonstabilizerness phase transitions of systems with hundreds of qubits.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Swapping Floquet time crystal

We propose a Floquet period-doubling time-crystal model based on a disordered interacting long-range spin chain where the periodic swapping of nearby spin couples is applied. This protocol can be applied to systems with any local spin magnitude $s$ {and in principle also to systems with nonspin (fermionic or bosonic) local Hilbert space}. We explicitly consider the cases $s = 1/2$ and $s = 1$, using analytical and numerical methods to show that the time-crystal behavior appears in a range of parameters. In particular, we study the persistence of period-doubling oscillations in time, the time-crystal properties of the Floquet spectrum (quasienergy $\pi$-spectral pairing and long-range correlations of the Floquet states), and introduce a quantity (the local imbalance) to assess what initial states give rise to a period-doubling dynamics. We also consider the average level spacing ratio and find that the interval of parameters where the system does not thermalize and persistent period-doubling is possible corresponds to the one where the Floquet spectrum shows time-crystal properties.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Kitaev ring threaded by a magnetic flux: Topological gap, Anderson localization of quasiparticles, and divergence of supercurrent derivative

We study a superconducting Kitaev ring pierced by a magnetic flux, with and without disorder, in a quantum ring configuration, and in a rf-SQUID one, where a weak link is present. In the rf-SQUID configuration, in the topological phase, the supercurrent shows jumps at specific values of the flux $\Phi^*=\frac{hc}{e}(1/4+n)$, with $n\in\mathbb{N}$. In the thermodynamic limit $\Phi^*$ is constant inside the topological phase, independently of disorder, and we analytically predict this fact using a perturbative approach in the weak-link coupling. The weak link breaks the topological ground-state degeneracy, and opens a spectral gap for $\Phi\neq \Phi^*$, that vanishes at $\Phi^*$ with a cusp providing the current jump. Looking at the quasiparticle excitations, we see that they are Anderson localized, so they cannot carry a resistive contribution to the current, and the localization length shows a peculiar behavior at a flat-band point for the quasiparticles. In the absence of disorder, we analytically and numerically find that the chemical-potential derivative of the supercurrent logarithmically diverges at the topological-to-trivial transition, in agreement with the transition being of the second order.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗