Anticoncentration and magic spreading under ergodic quantum dynamics (2412.10229v1)

Abstract: Quantum state complexity metrics, such as anticoncentration and magic, offer key insights into many-body physics, information scrambling, and quantum computing. Anticoncentration and equilibration of magic under dynamics of random quantum circuits occur at times scaling logarithmically with system size, a prediction that is believed to extend to more general ergodic dynamics. This work challenges this idea by examining the anticoncentration and magic spreading in one-dimensional ergodic Floquet models and Hamiltonian systems. Using participation and stabilizer entropies to probe these resources, we reveal significant differences between the two settings.Floquet systems align with random circuit predictions, exhibiting anticoncentration and saturation of magic at time scales that increase logarithmically with system size. In contrast, Hamiltonian dynamics deviate from the random circuit predictions and require times scaling approximately linearly with system size to achieve saturation of participation and stabilizer entropies, which remain smaller than that of the typical quantum states even in the long-time limit. Our findings establish the phenomenology of participation and entropy growth in ergodic many-body systems and emphasize the role of energy conservation in constraining anticoncentration and magic dynamics.