Bulk and boundary entanglement transitions in the projective gauge-Higgs model

TL;DR

This paper investigates phase transitions in a measurement-based quantum model related to the $ ext{Z}_2$ gauge-Higgs system, revealing bulk and boundary entanglement transitions and their relation to topological order and percolation phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a measurement-only model for the $ ext{Z}_2$ gauge-Higgs system and maps out its phase diagram using entanglement measures, highlighting bulk-boundary phase transitions and topological features.

Findings

Deconfining phase identified by constant topological entanglement entropy.

Boundary phase transition separates Higgs=SPT phase from others.

Topological phase transitions linked to homological cycles and percolation thresholds.

Abstract

In quantum many-body spin systems, the interplay between the entangling effect of multi-qubit Pauli measurements and the disentangling effect of single-qubit Pauli measurements may give rise to two competing effects. By introducing a randomized measurement pattern with such bases, a phase transition can be induced by altering the ratio between them. In this work, we numerically investigate a measurement-based model associated with the $(2+1)$d $\mathbb{Z}_2$ Fradkin-Shenker Hamiltonian model, encompassing the deconfining, confining, and Higgs phases. We determine the phase diagram in our measurement-only model by employing entanglement measures. For the bulk topological order, we use the topological entanglement entropy. We also use the mutual information between separated boundary regions to diagnose the boundary phase transition associated with the Higgs or the bulk SPT phase. We observe the structural similarity between our phase diagram and the one in the standard quantum Hamiltonian formulation of the Fradkin-Shenker model with the open rough boundary. First, a deconfining phase is detected by nonzero and constant topological entanglement entropy. Second, we find a (boundary) phase transition curve separating the Higgs=SPT phase from the rest. In certain limits, the topological phase transitions reside at the critical point of the formation of giant homological cycles in the bulk 3d spacetime lattice, as well as the bond percolation threshold of the boundary 2d spacetime lattice when it is effectively decoupled from the bulk. Additionally, there are analogous mixed-phase properties at a certain region of the phase diagram, emerging from how we terminate the measurement-based procedure. Our findings pave an alternative pathway to study the physics of Higgs=SPT phases on quantum devices in the near future.