English

Non-zero momentum requires long-range entanglement

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2022-07-18 v2 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics High Energy Physics - Theory Quantum Physics

Abstract

We show that a quantum state in a lattice spin (boson) system must be long-range entangled if it has non-zero lattice momentum, i.e. if it is an eigenstate of the translation symmetry with eigenvalue eiP1e^{iP}\neq1. Equivalently, any state that can be connected with a non-zero momentum state through a finite-depth local unitary transformation must also be long-range entangled. The statement can also be generalized to fermion systems. Some non-trivial consequences follow immediately from our theorem: (1) several different types of Lieb-Schultz-Mattis-Oshikawa-Hastings (LSMOH) theorems, including a previously unknown version involving only a discrete Zn\mathbb{Z}_n symmetry, can be derived in a simple manner from our result; (2) a gapped topological order (in space dimension d>1d>1) must weakly break translation symmetry if one of its ground states on torus has nontrivial momentum - this generalizes the familiar physics of Tao-Thouless; (3) our result provides further evidence of the "smoothness" assumption widely used in the classification of crystalline symmetry-protected topological (cSPT) phases.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2112.06946,
  title  = {Non-zero momentum requires long-range entanglement},
  author = {Lei Gioia and Chong Wang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2112.06946},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

12 pages, 5 figures; RevTex4.2; Accepted in PRX

R2 v1 2026-06-24T08:15:41.826Z