arXiv subjects

Sarang Gopalakrishnan

Publications and source records attributed to Sarang Gopalakrishnan.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Distinguishability Transitions from Global Quantum Snapshots

Quantum states generated by generic time evolution are locally featureless: local measurements return random outcomes that are identical for all states. However, global snapshots in the computational basis are surprisingly effective at distinguishing between quantum states. We explore the ability of Bayesian classifiers to discriminate between many random quantum states using a small number of measurement outcomes. We identify a phase transition in the ability of the classifier to distinguish between $k$ candidate states with $m$ shots controlled by the variable $x = m / \ln k$, and derive the threshold value $x_c$. We extend our results to low-depth circuits near the onset of anti-concentration, as well as to noisy circuits and phase-random states.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2026

Error-Adaptive Quasi-local Decoding of the Toric Code

Topological quantum memories need decoders that are both reliable and scalable, but these goals compete: globally informed decoders are accurate near threshold yet expensive, while strictly local rules are fast but can miss long-range structure. Motivated by recent recoverability and mixed-state viewpoints, we make this tradeoff operational for the dephased toric code through a decoder-level local recoverability diagnostic. We compare global MWPM corrections to quasi-local corrections inside a target region and define a matching ratio $R_{\mathrm{match}}$, with mismatch $\epsilon_{\mathrm{match}}=1-R_{\mathrm{match}}$. Across geometry families, $\epsilon_{\mathrm{match}}$ shows strong buffer-controlled suppression and is well organized by a two-geometry scaling form. For scaled families, especially $a=b=d/8$, $R_{\mathrm{match}}$ exhibits a clear crossing and finite-size collapse near $p\!\sim\!0.09$, consistent with a growing recoverability scale near the decoding transition. We use this scaling to formulate an adaptive buffer-selection rule and to identify a distance-scaled initialization for a composite quasi-local RG decoder on the full torus. In the tuned family $a_0=b_0=d/8$, the resulting logical-failure curves show an apparent finite-size crossing at $p\simeq0.09$--$0.10$, below the conventional MWPM threshold scale. We focus on dephasing noise with perfect syndrome measurements to cleanly isolate the underlying behavior.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Lieb-Schultz-Mattis Constraints for Quantum Channels: A Spacetime-Duality View

Quantum anomalies strongly constrain the possible behavior of many-body systems. A prime example is the Lieb-Schultz-Mattis (LSM) theorem, which relates UV symmetry and filling constraints to IR features of the energy spectrum and ground-state structure. Here, we ask how LSM constraints shape dynamical signatures and temporal correlations in open quantum systems. Using a spacetime duality, we show that the Liouvillian of a $d$-dimensional repeated quantum channel with a mixed anomaly between strong $S$ and weak $G$ symmetry can be mapped to a $(d{+}1)$-dimensional mixed-state symmetry-protected topological (mSPT) phase. Under this correspondence, the initial and steady states of the channel are identified with boundary states of the higher-dimensional mSPT in the presence of bulk projection. We further introduce the twisted Renyi-$N$ correlator (TRNC) as a probe of temporal correlations in the channel and demonstrate that it is dual to the mSPT strange correlator, providing a direct bulk-boundary route to diagnose long-range temporal order implied by the LSM anomaly. Finally, we identify the \textit{Liouvillian singular spectrum}, rather than the Liouvillian spectrum itself, as a more fundamental diagnostic of quantum anomalies, and show that it is dual to the operator entanglement spectrum of the mSPT.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Ferromagnetism from the geometry of localized wavefunctions in moir\'e systems

We present a mechanism for ferromagnetism in narrow bands consisting of Anderson-localized states. We exploit single-particle localization to derive a controlled theory of exchange interactions within the narrow band. For quasiperiodic systems with a half-filled moir\'e band, we show that the critical interaction strength for ferromagnetism is highly sensitive to the geometry of real-space overlaps between localized orbitals: we find well-defined resonances at which ferromagnetism sets in for interaction energies that are far lower than the gap to other bands. Near these resonances, all the approximations in our theory are controlled, so our critical point predictions are quantitative. We show examples both in one and two dimensions. Our work identifies a route to ferromagnetism based on the geometry of real-space wavefunctions, distinct from previously found mechanisms based on the quantum geometry of Bloch bands.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2026

Control transition in a temporally random classical spin chain

We theoretically explore a phase transition between controlled and chaotic dynamics in a classical spin chain model subject to chaotic Hamiltonian dynamics and a contractive "control map", which alternate in time. The control map drives the system toward a target configuration that is an unstable fixed point under the chaotic dynamics. When the control is strong enough, the target configuration is the globally attracting stable fixed point of the dynamics; for weaker control, the many-body dynamics remains chaotic for almost all initial states. The phase transition between controlled and chaotic phases has a mixed character: As the transition is approached from the chaotic phase, the fraction of the spins that are far from the target configuration goes continuously to zero, and there are diverging spatial and temporal correlation lengths; however, the leading Lyapunov exponent is discontinuous across the transition, jumping from a positive value in the chaotic phase to a negative value in the controlled phase. We present evidence that this transition is in the same universality class as directed percolation in the presence of temporal randomness, a universality class for which we obtain results that are consistent with the dynamical Harris criterion but do not saturate the bound.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2026

Detecting vortex motion through spatially correlated nonequilibrium noise

Resistive transport near a superconducting phase can arise from the motion of normal-state quasiparticles or that of vortices. The conductivity alone does not distinguish between these mechanisms. We propose an unambiguous method for telling them apart, using the recently developed experimental tool of covariance magnetometry, which uses nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond to probe real-time spatiotemporal correlations in magnetic noise. Our key insight is that, under an applied current, the underlying charge carriers leave a directional fingerprint in the spatially correlated magnetic noise above the sample: ordinary electric carriers drift parallel to the current, whereas vortices, owing to the Magnus force, drift perpendicular to it. The noise covariance detects this anisotropy and identifies the vortex-driven nature of transport. We compute the noise correlations expected for a representative thin-film superconductor and demonstrate that the anisotropic signal is well within the reach of current experimental capabilities.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2026

Long-lived local quantum coherences from hydrodynamic large deviations

We develop a framework to describe how quantum coherences between distinct charge sectors evolve under generic charge-conserving dynamics. Our framework captures the nonperturbative interactions between quantum coherences and hydrodynamic large deviations -- i.e., rare ``voids'' of low charge entropy. Conditional on surviving, the quantum coherence and its surrounding void form a collective polaron-like object. In one dimension, even at infinite temperature, we show that the lifetime of coherences is parametrically enhanced because they bind to voids. We use our framework to address two fundamental questions about generic quantum dynamics with a conserved charge. First, we argue that gapped Ruelle-Pollicott resonances are absent in the weak-noise limit, even in sectors of operator space that contain no hydrodynamic slow modes: instead, the spectral gap in all sectors vanishes nonperturbatively in the noise strength. Second, we compute the spacetime asymptotics of the dynamical single-particle Green's function, both in the weak-noise regime and in the absence of noise. In the noiseless case, we find that the void-coherence polaron undergoes subdiffusion, with an exponent we calculate. We support our general arguments with a microscopic derivation for random charge-conserving circuits, as well as numerical evidence from tensor-network simulations.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Algorithmic Locality via Provable Convergence in Quantum Tensor Networks

Belief propagation has recently emerged as a powerful framework for evaluating tensor networks in higher dimensions, combining computational efficiency with provable analytical guarantees. In this work, we develop the first end-to-end theory of tensor network belief propagation for a class of projected entangled pair states satisfying \emph{strong injectivity}. We show that when the injectivity parameter exceeds a constant threshold, BP fixed points can be found efficiently, and a cluster-corrected BP algorithm computes physical quantities to $1/\mathrm{poly}(N)$ error in $\mathrm{poly}(N)$ time for an $N$ qubit system. We identify a striking phenomenon we term \emph{algorithmic locality}: local perturbations of the tensor network affect the BP fixed point with an influence decaying rapidly with distance. As a result, updates to the fixed point after a local perturbation can be carried out using only local recomputation. Moreover, through the cluster expansion, this locality extends to observables, implying that local expectation values can be approximated from local data with controlled accuracy. Our results provide the first rigorous guarantee for the effectiveness of tensor-network belief propagation on a wide class of many-body states, bridging a gap between widely used numerical practice and provable algorithmic performance.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Simple slow operators and quantum thermalization

We establish a rigorous relation between the thermalization of typical initial states and the dynamics of local operators. We introduce a concept of simple slow operators (SSOs), defined as operators that have a small commutator with the Hamiltonian and have significant small-sized components. We show that if typical initial states (drawn from a low-complexity state ensemble) do not thermalize on timescale $t$, then SSOs must exist that are approximately conserved up to timescale $t$. Equivalently, the absence of SSOs implies that typical initial states thermalize. We establish these results by introducing the concept of an ensemble variance norm of an operator, defined as the typical magnitude of the expectation value of that operator with respect to states in the ensemble. For low-entanglement ensembles, the norm is related to operator sizes, allowing us to establish a direct link between operator growth and thermalization.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Theory of Two-Qubit $T_2$ Spectroscopy of Quantum Many-Body Systems

Multi-qubit quantum sensors are rapidly emerging as platforms that extend the capabilities of conventional single-qubit sensing. In this work we show how suitable pulse sequences applied to a two-qubit sensor enable separate extraction of the response and noise of a probed environment within a $T_2$ spectroscopy framework. By resorting to representative examples, we demonstrate that this approach can resolve the spatio-temporal spreading of correlations in a many-body system. In particular, the resulting correlated dephasing signal captures features such as the dispersion of low-energy excitations, which manifest as light-cone-like profiles in the propagation of correlations. We further show that non-equilibrium conditions, for instance those induced by external driving, can modify this profile by producing additional fringes outside the light-cone. As a complementary application, we demonstrate that the method clearly distinguishes between different transport regimes in the system, including ballistic spreading, diffusive broadening, and the crossover between them.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Anomalous Diffusion and Superdiffusion in Integrable Spin Chains via a Soliton Gas Mapping

We introduce a multi-species soliton gas in which each species has a distinct effective scattering length, and the repulsive scattering shift is set by the smaller of the two colliding particles. We argue that this model shares key quasiparticle and scattering features with the XXZ spin chain. We show that fixing only the functional decay of bare velocities with particle size is sufficient to reproduce the XXZ spin-transport phase diagram: diffusion (with anomalous fluctuations) in the anisotropic regime and superdiffusion at the isotropic point. We then demonstrate that the statistics of charge transfer differs qualitatively from that of \textit{particle trajectories}. For large particles, trajectories are Gaussian in the diffusive regime and appear to exhibit KPZ statistics at the isotropic point, providing a direct microscopic signature of KPZ physics in integrable quasiparticle motion. In contrast, charge-transfer fluctuations are anomalous in the anisotropic regime, while they cross over to Gaussian statistics at late times at the isotropic point, reconciling non-Gaussian trajectory fluctuations with Gaussian charge-transfer statistics. Our results establish this soliton gas as a minimal framework for anomalous spin and charge transport in integrable systems, and offer new insight into the origin of KPZ fluctuations in isotropic integrable models.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2026

Strong-to-Weak Symmetry Breaking in Open Quantum Systems: From Discrete Particles to Continuum Hydrodynamics

We explore the onset of spontaneous strong-to-weak symmetry breaking (SW-SSB) under U(1)-symmetric (i.e., charge-conserving) open-system dynamics. We define this phenomenon for quantum states and classical probability distributions, and explore it in three complementary models, one of which exhibits nontrivial quantum coherence at short times. Our main conclusions are as follows. In one dimension, the strong symmetry is not spontaneously broken at any finite time; however, correlators probing strong-to-weak symmetry breaking develop order on length scales that grow linearly in time, parametrically faster than charge diffusion. We provide numerical evidence for this scaling in multiple distinct probes of SW-SSB, and derive it from a field-theory analysis. Moreover, we relate this scaling to the problem of inferring the charge inside a subregion by measuring its surroundings, and construct explicit decoding protocols that illustrate its origin. In two dimensions, field theory and numerical simulations support a finite-time Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless-like SW-SSB transition. Within continuum hydrodynamics, by contrast, SW-SSB happens at infinitesimal time in two or more dimensions. The SW-SSB transition time can thus be interpreted as marking the emergence of a continuum hydrodynamic description, or (more precisely) the timescale beyond which non-hydrodynamic information such as discrete particle worldlines can no longer be inferred. We support this picture by analyzing a model in which we exploit SW-SSB to derive a classical stochastic hydrodynamic description from the underlying quantum dynamics.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Noncommuting zero-noise and zero-frequency limits in particle-hole symmetric fluids

In charged fluids obeying particle-hole symmetry, such as the Dirac fluid in graphene, charge transport is diffusive despite the presence of ballistically propagating sound waves: sound waves "hydrodynamically decouple" from the slower charge fluctuations. For quasi-one-dimensional fluids, we show that this symmetry-protected charge diffusion is not smoothly connected to the normal diffusion that arises when momentum conservation is broken by noise (or static impurities). Instead, the charge diffusion constant is a discontinuous function of noise, which (in the weak-noise limit) depends only on the ratio of momentum and energy relaxation rates. In the special limit of momentum-conserving noise (e.g., spatially uniform fluctuations of the Hamiltonian), the diffusion constant diverges in the presence of noise. We describe the resulting superdiffusion in terms of coupled Burgers equations. We present a general mechanism--hydrodynamic recoupling--by which weak noise can induce singular changes in transport coefficients. Our results highlight the limits of zero-noise extrapolation for predicting dynamical quantities like diffusion constants.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2025

Strong-to-weak symmetry breaking in monitored dipole conserving quantum circuits

We explore the information-theoretic phases of monitored quantum circuits subject to dynamics that conserves both charge and dipole moment, as well as measurements of the local charge density. Explicitly, both charge and dipole-moment conservation are strong symmetries, but under the dynamics they can be spontaneously broken to weak symmetries: this spontaneous symmetry breaking has an information-theoretic interpretation in terms of whether one can learn global charges from local measurements. We find a rich phase diagram: in one spatial dimension, charge is always easy to learn, while dipole moment can be either easy or hard. In two dimensions, we find three phases: for frequent measurements, both charge and dipole moment are easy to learn; as the measurement rate is decreased, first dipole moment and then charge become hard. In two dimensions, the low-measurement phase is an exotic critical phase with anisotropic spacetime scaling, analogous to a smectic liquid crystal.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Holographic duality between bulk topological order and boundary mixed-state order

We introduce a holographic framework for analyzing the steady states of repeated quantum channels with strong symmetries. Using channel-state duality, we show that the steady state of a $d$-dimensional quantum channel is holographically mapped to the boundary reduced density matrix of a $(d+1)$-dimensional wavefunction generated by a sequential unitary circuit. From this perspective, strong-to-weak spontaneous symmetry breaking (SWSSB) in the steady state arises from the anyon condensation on the boundary of a topological order in one higher dimension. The conditional mutual information (CMI) associated with SWSSB is then inherited from the bulk topological entanglement entropy. We make this duality explicit using isometric tensor network states (isoTNS) by identifying the channel's time evolution with the transfer matrix of a higher-dimensional isoTNS. Built on isoTNS, we further construct continuously tunable quantum channels that exhibit distinct mixed-state phases and transitions in the steady states.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Stability of mixed-state phases under weak decoherence

We prove that the Gibbs states of classical, and commuting-Pauli, Hamiltonians are stable under weak local decoherence: i.e., we show that the effect of the decoherence can be locally reversed. In particular, our conclusions apply to finite-temperature equilibrium critical points and ordered low-temperature phases. In these systems the unconditional spatio-temporal correlations are long-range, and local (e.g., Metropolis) dynamics exhibits critical slowing down. Nevertheless, our results imply the existence of local "decoders" that undo the decoherence, when the decoherence strength is below a critical value. An implication of these results is that thermally stable quantum memories have a threshold against decoherence that remains nonzero as one approaches the critical temperature. Analogously, in diffusion models, stability of data distributions implies the existence of computationally-efficent local denoisers in the late-time generation dynamics.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Spectral properties and coding transitions of Haar-random quantum codes

A quantum error-correcting code with a nonzero error threshold undergoes a mixed-state phase transition when the error rate reaches that threshold. We explore this phase transition for Haar-random quantum codes, in which the logical information is encoded in a random subspace of the physical Hilbert space. We focus on the spectrum of the encoded system density matrix as a function of the rate of uncorrelated, single-qudit errors. For low error rates, this spectrum consists of well-separated bands, representing errors of different weights. As the error rate increases, the bands for high-weight errors merge. The evolution of these bands with increasing error rate is well described by a simple analytic ansatz. Using this ansatz, as well as an explicit calculation, we show that the threshold for Haar-random quantum codes saturates the hashing bound, and thus coincides with that for random $\textit{stabilizer}$ codes. For error rates that exceed the hashing bound, typical errors are uncorrectable, but postselected error correction remains possible until a much higher $\textit{detection}$ threshold. Postselection can in principle be implemented by projecting onto subspaces corresponding to low-weight errors, which remain correctable past the hashing bound.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Classically Sampling Noisy Quantum Circuits in Quasi-Polynomial Time under Approximate Markovianity

While quantum computing can accomplish tasks that are classically intractable, the presence of noise may destroy this advantage in the absence of fault tolerance. In this work, we present a classical algorithm that runs in $n^{\rm{polylog}(n)}$ time for simulating quantum circuits under local depolarizing noise, thereby ruling out their quantum advantage in these settings. Our algorithm leverages a property called approximate Markovianity to sequentially sample from the measurement outcome distribution of noisy circuits. We establish approximate Markovianity in a broad range of circuits: (1) we prove that it holds for any circuit when the noise rate exceeds a constant threshold, and (2) we provide strong analytical and numerical evidence that it holds for random quantum circuits subject to any constant noise rate. These regimes include previously known classically simulable cases as well as new ones, such as shallow random circuits without anticoncentration, where prior algorithms fail. Taken together, our results significantly extend the boundary of classical simulability and suggest that noise generically enforces approximate Markovianity and classical simulability, thereby highlighting the limitation of noisy quantum circuits in demonstrating quantum advantage.

quant-ph↗