Disentangling quantum matter with measurements

Abstract

Measurements destroy entanglement. Building on ideas used to study `quantum disentangled liquids', we explore the use of this effect to characterize states of matter. We focus on systems with multiple components, such as charge and spin in a Hubbard model, or local moments and conduction electrons in a Kondo lattice model. In such systems, measurements of (a subset of) one of the components can leave behind a quantum state of the other that is easy to understand, for example in terms of scaling of entanglement entropy of subregions. We bound the outcome of this protocol, for any choice of measurement, in terms of more standard information-theoretic quantities. We apply this quantum disentangling protocol to several problems of physical interest, including gapless topological phases, heavy fermions, and scar states in Hubbard model.