Experimental Realization of a Measurement-Induced Entanglement Phase Transition on a Superconducting Quantum Processor

Understand

Ergodic quantum many-body systems undergoing unitary dynamics evolve towards increasingly entangled states characterized by an extensive scaling of entanglement entropy with system volume.

• At the other extreme, quantum systems repeatedly measured may be stabilized in a measurement eigenstate, a phenomenon known as the quantum Zeno effect.
• Recently, the intermediate regime in which unitary evolution is interspersed with quantum measurements has become of interest.
• Numerical studies have reported the existence of distinct phases characterized by volume- and area-law entanglement entropy scaling for infrequent and frequent measurement rates, respectively, separated by a critical measurement rate.