Operator growth bounds from graph theory (Q2041633)

The article provides a connection between combinatoric quantity arising from graph theory, and the bounds of the norm of the commutator between two observables of interest. The latter is motivated by the notion of the scrambling time -- the time at which a product state is transformed into a maximally entangled one. Such quantity is described via the commutators between two observables at different times, e.g. \(A_i\left( t \right)\) and \(B_j\), so-called out-of-time-order correlators. It is then transcribed as projected operator of \(A_i\left( t \right)\) onto a local space associated with \(B_j.\) The combinatorics and graph structures arise here from the expansion of the evolution operators in \(A_i\left( t \right),\) yielding the interplay between the aforementioned projection and the products of generators, in the expansion, associated with different paths on the graph. The authors analysed the problem for both non-random and random systems, where in the first scenario they recover the Lieb-Robinson bound as a special case. For the models with randomness, the scrambling time for some classes of graphs and the evidence for the validity of the scrambling conjecture -- the scrambling time does not grow logarithmically with the number of degrees of freedom -- are provided (yet the scrambling conjecture is not formally proven.) The analyses in this article are interesting in several aspects of quantum many-body physics. On one hand, they provide the extension of the understanding on the scrambling or the process through which the information is lost in the many-body system. On the other hand, they exemplify the connection between combinatorics and geometric pictures with the study of the dynamical process. It is interesting that similar analyses can be adapted to other similar problems such as the study of the growth of some quantity or the causal structure on quantum networks.