arXiv subjects

Rui-Zhen Huang

Publications and source records attributed to Rui-Zhen Huang.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Corner entanglement scaling with projected entangled pair states

Entanglement scaling provides a powerful probe of universal properties at quantum critical points. In two dimensions, contributions originating from a corner-shaped bipartition exhibit a universal scaling, which is determined by the underlying conformal field theory. We develop a method to extract this corner entanglement entropy from projected entangled pair states directly in the thermodynamic limit. When applied to models at a quantum critical point, we show that the corner contribution exhibits scaling with the effective correlation length, in agreement with the hypothesis of finite-entanglement scaling. Our results for the corner coefficients are consistent with other methods, demonstrating the efficiency of our method for diagnosing strongly-correlated quantum critical points in two dimensions.

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arXiv2026

Accessing Gapped Chiral Phase with Auxiliary-Assisted PEPS

It has been controversial whether infinite projected entangled pair state (PEPS) can faithfully describe chiral gapped phases in two dimensions or not. Finite-bond-dimension PEPS can capture many local and topological properties of chiral phases, but generically develop spurious long-range power-law like correlations. We introduce an auxiliary-assisted framework that bypass this obstruction by embedding the physical chiral system together with an auxiliary time-reversed partner, yielding a non-chiral enlarged representation whose physical chiral sector is recovered with controlled decoupling. For both a free-fermion Chern insulator and an interacting chiral spin liquid, the resulting PEPS show clean gapped correlation functions, and a finite transfer-matrix correlation length, in contrast with the artificial long-range tail of direct chiral PEPS representations. There exist small and negligibly coupling between the physical and auxiliary systems due to the finite entanglement effect, which only affect short-ranged local quantities. Despite the nonchiral enlarged representation, the chiral topological information remains encoded in the entanglement. Using layer-resolved momentum projection, we recover the expected universal chiral entanglement boundary spectrum. Our study provides a practical route to access gapped chiral phases with finite bond-dimension PEPS by changing the representation problem rather than directly studying the chiral pure state.

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arXiv2026

Emergent Symmetry and Phase Transitions on the Domain Wall of $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ Topological Orders

The one-dimensional (1D) domain wall of 2D $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ topological orders is studied theoretically. The Ising domain wall model is shown to have an emergent SU(2)$_{1}$ conformal symmetry because of a hidden nonsymmorphic octahedral symmetry. While a weak magnetic field is an irrelevant perturbation to the bulk topological orders, it induces a domain wall transition from the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid to a ferromagnetic order, which spontaneously breaks the anomalous $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ symmetry and the time-reversal symmetry on the domain wall. Moreover, the gapless domain wall state also realizes a 1D topological quantum critical point between a $\mathbb{Z}_{2}^{T}$-symmetry-protected topological phase and a trivial phase, thus demonstrating the holographic construction of topological transitions.

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arXiv2025

Valence-bonds, spin liquids and unconventional criticality in a 1D Kondo insulator

We consider a one-dimensional multi-orbital Kondo lattice model and show that by tuning the kinetic energy of the itinerant electrons it is possible to stabilize Kondo insulators with non-trivial spin physics. In particular, depending on the size of the exchange coupling between the local moments, we find kinetic-energy-driven transitions between a featureless Kondo insulator and a valence-bond solid or a gapless spin liquid. We also provide evidence for an unconventional continuous phase transition between two featureless Kondo insulators distinguished by their quantum numbers under reflection symmetry.

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arXiv2025

Finite Correlation Length Scaling of Disorder Parameter at Quantum Criticality

The disorder parameter, defined as the expectation value of the symmetry transformation acting on a subsystem, can be used to characterize symmetric phases as an analogy to detecting spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) phases using local order parameters. In a dual picture, disorder parameters actually detect SSB of higher-form symmetries. In this work, we show that the non-local disorder parameters can be conveniently and efficiently evaluated using infinite projected entangled pair states (iPEPS). Moreover, we propose a finite correlation length scaling theory of the disorder parameter within the quantum critical region and validate the scaling theory with variationally optimized iPEPS. We find from the finite correlation length scaling that the disorder parameter satisfies perimeter law at a critical point, i.e., it decays exponentially with the boundary size of the subsystem, indicating spontaneous higher-form symmetry breaking at the critical point of the dual model.

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arXiv2025

Disentangling critical quantum spin chains with Clifford circuits

Clifford circuits can be utilized to disentangle quantum states with polynomial cost, thanks to the Gottesman-Knill theorem. Based on this idea, the Clifford circuits augmented matrix product states (CAMPS) method, which is a seamless integration of Clifford circuits within the density-matrix renormalization group algorithm, was proposed recently and was shown to be able to reduce entanglement in various quantum systems. In this work, we further explore the power of the CAMPS method in critical spin chains described by conformal field theories (CFTs) in the scaling limit. We find that the optimized disentanglers correspond to {\it duality} transformations, which significantly reduce the entanglement entropy in the ground state. For the critical quantum Ising spin chain governed by the Ising CFT with self-duality, the Clifford circuits found by CAMPS coincide with the duality transformation, i.e., the Kramers-Wannier self-duality in the critical Ising chain. It reduces the entanglement entropy by mapping the free conformal boundary condition to the fixed one. In the more general case of the XXZ chain, the CAMPS gives rise to a duality transformation mapping the model to the quantum Ashkin-Teller spin chain. Our results highlight the potential of the framework as a versatile tool for uncovering hidden dualities and simplifying the entanglement structure of critical quantum systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Noninvertible Symmetry-Enriched Quantum Critical Point

Noninvertible symmetry generalizes traditional group symmetries, advancing our understanding of quantum matter, especially one-dimensional gapped quantum systems. In critical lattice models, it is usually realized as emergent symmetries in the corresponding low-energy conformal field theories. In this work, we study critical lattice models with the noninvertible Rep($D_8$) symmetry in one dimension. This leads us to a new class of quantum critical points (QCP), noninvertible symmetry-enriched QCPs, as a generalization of known group symmetry-enriched QCPs. They are realized as phase transitions between one noninvertible symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phase and another different one or spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) phase. We identify their low-energy properties and topological features through the Kennedy-Tasaki (KT) duality transformation. We argue that distinct noninvertible symmetry-enriched QCPs can not be smoothly connected without a phase transition or a multi-critical point.

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arXiv2024

Fractional Chern insulator candidate in twisted bilayer checkboard lattice

We investigate a fractional Chern insulator (FCI) candidate arising from Moiré bands with higher Chern number C=2 on a magic angle twisted bilayer checkboard lattice (MATBCB). There are two nearly flat low lying bands in the single particle energy spectrum under the first magic angle $ϕ\approx 1.608^{\circ}$ and chiral limit. We find MATBCB hosts a nearly uniform Berry curvature distribution and exhibits tiny violation of quantum geometric trace condition in the first moiré Brillourin Zone (mBZ), indicating that there is a nearly ideal quantum geometry in MATBCB in single particle level. Turning on projected Coulomb interactions, we perform exact diagonalization and find a ten-fold ground state quasi-degeneracy in many body energy spectrum with filling fraction $ν=1/5$. The ten-fold quasi-degenrate ground states further show spectra flow under flux pumping. By diagnosing the particle entanglement spectrum (PES) of the ground states, we obtain a clear PES gap and quasi-hole state counting consistent with Halperin spin singlet generalized Pauli principle, suggesting that a fractional Chern insulator is realized in this system.

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arXiv2024

Measuring the Boundary Gapless State and Criticality via Disorder Operator

The disorder operator is often designed to reveal the conformal field theory information in quantum many-body systems. By using large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulation, we study the scaling behavior of disorder operators on the boundary in the two-dimensional Heisenberg model on the square-octagon lattice with gapless topological edge state. In the Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki phase, the disorder operator is shown to hold the perimeter scaling with a logarithmic term associated with the Luttinger liquid parameter K. This effective Luttinger liquid parameter K reflects the low-energy physics and CFT for (1+1)D boundary. At bulk critical point, the effective K is suppressed but keeps finite value, indicating the coupling between the gapless edge state and bulk fluctuation. The logarithmic term numerically captures this coupling picture, which reveals the (1+1)D SU(2)1 CFT and (2+1)D O(3) CFT at boundary criticality. Our Letter paves a new way to study the exotic boundary state and boundary criticality.

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arXiv2024

Relevant long-range interaction of the entanglement Hamiltonian emerges from a short-range gapped system

Beyond the Li-Haldane-Poilblanc conjecture, we find the entanglement Hamiltonian (EH) is actually not closely similar to the original Hamiltonian on the virtual edge. Unexpectedly, the EH has some relevant long-range interacting terms which hugely affect the physics. Without loss of generality, we study a spin-1/2 Heisenberg bilayer to obtain the entanglement information between the two layers through our newly developed quantum Monte Carlo scheme, which can simulate large-scale EH. Although the entanglement spectrum carrying the Goldstone mode seems like a Heisenberg model on a single layer, which is consistent with Li-Haldane-Poilblanc conjecture, we demonstrate that there actually exists a finite-temperature phase transition of the EH. The results violate the Mermin-Wagner theorem, which means there should be relevant long-range terms in the EH. It reveals that the Li-Haldane-Poilblanc conjecture ignores necessary corrections for the EH which may lead totally different physics.

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arXiv2024

Universal entanglement correction induced by relevant deformations at the quantum critical point

Local relevant deformations are important tool to study universal properties of quantum critical points. We investigate the effect of small relevant deformations on the bi-partite entanglement entropy at the quantum critical points. Within the quantum critical region, a universal power-law correction in the entanglement entropy induced by the relevant operator is found in both one- and two-dimensional critical lattice models. The exponent of the power-law correction term is determined by the scaling dimension of the relevant operator. Based on numerical simulations and scaling theory argument, it is conjectured that such a universal power-law correction in the entanglement entropy is universal for Lorentz invariant quantum critical points. Without Lorentz invariance, it is found the exponent in the power-law correction term does not fit in with the scaling argument in models with a dynamical exponent z=2 in two dimension. This may be because the relevant operator added in the lattice model corresponds to complicated operators in the corresponding conformal field theory. Our study provides a different perspective to extract universal information of quantum critical points. We expect it would be useful to detect unique properties of topological quantum phase transitions.

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arXiv2024

Demonstrating the wormhole mechanism of the entanglement spectrum via a perturbed boundary

The Li-Haldane conjecture is one of the most famous conjectures in physics and opens a new research area in the quantum entanglement and topological phase. Although a lot of theoretical and numerical works have confirmed the conjecture in topological states with bulk-boundary correspondence, the cases with gapped boundary and the systems in high dimension are widely unknown. What is the valid scope of the Li-Haldane conjecture? Via the newly developed quantum Monte Carlo scheme, we are now able to extract the large-scale entanglement spectrum (ES) and study its relation with the edge energy spectrum generally. Taking the two-dimensional Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki model with a tunable boundary on the square-octagon lattice as an example, we find several counterexamples which cannot be explained by the Li-Haldane conjecture; e.g., the low-lying entanglement spectrum does not always show similar behaviors as the energy spectrum on the virtual boundary, and sometimes the ES resembles the energy spectrum of the edge even if it is gapped. Finally, we demonstrate that the newly proposed wormhole mechanism on the path integral of a reduced density matrix is the formation principle of the general ES. We find that the Li-Haldane conjecture is a particular case in some limit of the wormhole picture while all the examples of the conjecture we have studied can totally be explained within the wormhole mechanism framework. Our results provide important evidence for demonstrating that the wormhole mechanism is the fundamental principle to explain the ES.

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arXiv2024

Bridging Rokhsar-Kivelson Type and Generic Quantum Phase Transitions via Thermofield Double States

The formalism of the Rokhsar-Kivelson (RK) model has been frequently used to study topological phase transitions in 2D in terms of the deformed wavefunctions, which are RK-type wavefunctions. A key drawback of the deformed wavefunctions is that the obtained quantum critical points are RK-type, in the sense that the equal-time correlation functions are described by 2D conformal field theories (CFTs). The generic Lorentz invariant quantum critical points described by (2+1)D CFTs can not be obtained from the deformed wavefunctions. To address this issue, we generalize the deformed wavefunction approach to the deformed thermofield double (TFD) state methodology. Through this extension, we can effectively reconstruct the absent temporal dimension at the RK-type quantum critical point. We construct deformed TFD states for a (1+1)D quantum phase transition from a symmetry-protected topological phase to a symmetry-breaking phase, and for generic (2+1)D topological phase transitions from a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ topologically ordered phase to a trivial paramagnetic phase.

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arXiv2024

Emergent conformal boundaries from finite-entanglement scaling in matrix product states

The use of finite entanglement scaling with matrix product states (MPS) has become a crucial tool for studying 1+1d critical lattice theories, especially those with emergent conformal symmetry. We argue that finite entanglement introduces a relevant deformation in the critical theory. As a result, the bipartite entanglement Hamiltonian defined from the MPS can be understood as a boundary conformal field theory with a physical and an entanglement boundary. We are able to exploit the symmetry properties of the MPS to engineer the physical conformal boundary condition. The entanglement boundary, on the other hand, is related to the concrete lattice model and remains invariant under this relevant perturbation. Using critical lattice models described by the Ising, Potts, and free compact boson CFTs, we illustrate the influence of the symmetry and the relevant deformation on the conformal boundaries in the entanglement spectrum.

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arXiv2022

Conformal Boundary Conditions of Symmetry-Enriched Quantum Critical Spin Chains

Some quantum critical states cannot be smoothly deformed into each other without either crossing some multicritical points or explicitly breaking certain symmetries even if they belong to the same universality class. This brings up the notion of ``symmetry-enriched'' quantum criticality. While recent works in the literature focused on critical states with robust degenerate edge modes, we propose that the conformal boundary condition (b.c.) is a more generic characteristic of such quantum critical states. We show that in two families of quantum spin chains, which generalize the Ising and the three-state Potts models, the quantum critical point between a symmetry-protected topological phase and a symmetry-breaking order realizes a conformal b.c. distinct from the simple Ising and Potts chains. Furthermore, we argue that the conformal b.c. can be derived from the bulk effective field theory, which realizes a novel bulk-boundary correspondence in symmetry-enriched quantum critical states.

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arXiv2022

Fast scrambling dynamics and many-body localization transition in an all-to-all disordered quantum spin model

We study the quantum thermalization and information scrambling dynamics of an experimentally realizable quantum spin model with homogeneous XX-type all-to-all interactions and random local potentials. We identify the thermalization-localization transition by changing the disorder strength, under a proper all-to-all interaction strength. The scrambling dynamics in the localization phase shows novel behaviors distinct from that of local models. The operator scrambling grows almost equally fast in both phases. In the thermal phase, we show there exhibits fast scrambling without appealing to the semi-classical limit. We also briefly discuss the experimental realization of the model using superconducting qubit quantum simulators.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Observation of Emergent $\mathbb{Z}_2$ Gauge Invariance in a Superconducting Circuit

Lattice gauge theories (LGTs) are one of the most fundamental subjects in many-body physics, and has recently attracted considerable research interests in quantum simulations. Here we experimentally investigate the emergent $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge invariance in a 1D superconducting circuit with 10 transmon qubits. By precisely adjusting staggered longitudinal and transverse fields to each qubit, we construct an effective Hamiltonian containing an LGT and gauge-broken terms. The corresponding matter sector can exhibit a localization, and there also exists a 3-qubit operator, of which the expectation value can retain nonzero for a long time in low-energy regimes. The above localization can be regarded as the confinement of matter fields, and the 3-body operator is the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge generator. These experimental results demonstrate that, despite the absence of gauge structure in the effective Hamiltonian, $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge invariance can still emerge in low-energy regimes. Our work provides a method for both theoretically and experimentally studying the rich physics in quantum many-body systems with emergent gauge invariance.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Bulk and edge dynamics of a 2D Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki model

We study the dynamical properties of both bulk and edge spins of a two-dimensional Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki (AKLT) model mainly by using the stochastic series expansion quantum Monte Carlo method with stochastic analytic continuation. In the deep AKLT phase, we obtain a spin spectrum with flat band, which is a strong evidence for a localized state. Through the spectrum analysis, we see a clear continuous phase transition from the AKLT phase to the Néel phase in the model, and the energy gap becomes closed at the corresponding momentum point. In comparison with linear spin-wave theory, the differences show that there are strong interactions among magnons at high energies. With open boundary condition, the gap of edge spins in the AKLT phase closes at both the $Γ$ point and the $π$ point interestingly to emerge into a flat-band-like Luttinger liquid phase, which can be explained by symmetry and perturbation approximation. This paper helps us to better understand the completely different dynamical behaviors of bulk and edge spins in the symmetry protected topological phase.

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