The Lieb-Robinson correlation function for long disordered transverse-field Ising chains

TL;DR

This paper introduces a scalable method to compute the Lieb-Robinson correlation function in large disordered transverse-field Ising chains, revealing how disorder induces localization and halts quantum information propagation.

Contribution

The authors extend a recently-developed linear-scaling method to disordered Ising chains, enabling direct calculation of quantum correlations in large systems.

Findings

Disorder causes localization of quantum correlations.

Quantum information propagation is halted by increasing disorder.

Method allows analysis of systems with hundreds of qubits.

Abstract

The transverse-field Ising model is useful for studying interacting qubit arrays. The Lieb--Robinson correlation function can be used to characterize the propagation of quantum information in Ising chains. Considerable work has been done to establish bounds on this correlation function in various circumstances. To actually calculate the value of the correlation function directly typically requires a state space which grows exponentially with system size, and so is intractable for all but relatively small systems. We employ a recently-developed method that enables direct calculation of the value of the Lieb--Robinson correlation function and which scales linearly with system size. This enables the computation for systems with many hundreds of qubits, revealing the propagation of quantum information down the chain. We extend this technique to the problem of Ising chains with randomly disordered coupling strengths. Increasing disorder causes localization of the quantum correlations and halts propagation of quantum information.