English

Intermittency of dynamical phases in a quantum spin glass

Disordered Systems and Neural Networks 2019-07-04 v1 Quantum Physics

Abstract

Answering the question of existence of efficient quantum algorithms for NP-hard problems require deep theoretical understanding of the properties of the low-energy eigenstates and long-time coherent dynamics in quantum spin glasses. We discovered and described analytically the property of asymptotic orthogonality resulting in a new type of structure in quantum spin glass. Its eigen-spectrum is split into the alternating sequence of bands formed by quantum states of two distinct types (xx and zz). Those of zz-type are non-ergodic extended eigenstates (NEE) in the basis of {σz}\{\sigma_z\} operators that inherit the structure of the classical spin glass with exponentially long decay times of Edwards Anderson order parameter at any finite value of transverse field BB_{\perp}. Those of xx-type form narrow bands of NEEs that conserve the integer-valued xx-magnetization. Quantum evolution within a given band of each type is described by a Hamiltonian that belongs to either the ensemble of Preferred Basis Levi matrices (zz-type) or Gaussian Orthogonal ensemble (xx-type). We characterize the non-equilibrium dynamics using fractal dimension DD that depends on energy density (temperature) and plays a role of thermodynamic potential: D=0D=0 in MBL phase, 0<D<10<D<1 in NEE phase, D1D\rightarrow 1 in ergodic phase in infinite temperature limit. MBL states coexist with NEEs in the same range of energies even at very large BB_{\perp}. Bands of NEE states can be used for new quantum search-like algorithms of population transfer in the low-energy part of spin-configuration space. Remarkably, the intermitted structure of the eigenspectrum emerges in quantum version of a statistically featureless Random Energy Model and is expected to exist in a class of paractically important NP-hard problems that unlike REM can be implemented on a computer with polynomial resources.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1907.01609,
  title  = {Intermittency of dynamical phases in a quantum spin glass},
  author = {Vadim N. Smelyanskiy and Kostyantyn Kechedzhi and Sergio Boixo and Hartmut Neven and Boris Altshuler},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.01609},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

16 pages, 12 figures