Contributor info: Dr Fabio Franchini

Alberto Giuseppe Catalano, Jovan Odavić, Gianpaolo Torre, Alioscia Hamma, Fabio Franchini, Salvatore Marco Giampaolo

SciPost Phys. Core 8, 078 (2025) · published 6 November 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We employ the Stabilizer Rényi Entropy (SRE) to characterize a quantum phase transition that has so far eluded any standard description and can thus now be explained in terms of the interplay between its non-stabilizer properties and entanglement. The transition under consideration separates a region with a unique ground state from one with a degenerate ground state manifold spanned by states with finite and opposite (intensive) momenta. We show that SRE has a jump at the crossing points, while the entanglement entropy remains continuous. Moreover, by leveraging a Clifford circuit mapping, we connect the observed jump in SRE to that occurring between standard and generalized $W$-states with finite momenta. This mapping allows us to quantify the SRE discontinuity analytically.

Gianpaolo Torre, Jovan Odavić, Pierre Fromholz, Salvatore Marco Giampaolo, Fabio Franchini

SciPost Phys. Core 7, 050 (2024) · published 5 August 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

Topological order comes in different forms, and its classification and detection is an important field of modern research. In this work, we show that the Disconnected Entanglement Entropy, a measure originally introduced to identify topological phases, is also able to unveil the long-range entanglement (LRE) carried by a single, fractionalized excitation. We show this by considering a quantum, delocalized domain wall excitation that can be introduced into a system by inducing geometric frustration in an antiferromagnetic spin chain. Furthermore, we show that the LRE of such systems is resilient against a quantum quench and the introduction of disorder, as it happens in traditional symmetry-protected topological phases. All these evidences establish the existence of a new phase induced by frustration with topological features despite not being of the usual type.

Jovan Odavić, Tobias Haug, Gianpaolo Torre, Alioscia Hamma, Fabio Franchini, Salvatore Marco Giampaolo

SciPost Phys. 15, 131 (2023) · published 3 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We advance the characterization of complexity in quantum many-body systems by examining $W$-states embedded in a spin chain. Such states show an amount of non-stabilizerness or "magic", measured as the Stabilizer Rényi Entropy, that grows logarithmically with the number of qubits/spins. We focus on systems whose Hamiltonian admits a classical point with extensive degeneracy. Near these points, a Clifford circuit can convert the ground state into a $W$-state, while in the rest of the phase to which the classical point belongs, it is dressed with local quantum correlations. Topological frustrated quantum spin-chains host phases with the desired phenomenology, and we show that their ground state's Stabilizer Rényi Entropy is the sum of that of the $W$-states plus an extensive local contribution. Our work reveals that $W$-states/frustrated ground states display a non-local degree of complexity that can be harvested as a quantum resource and has no counterpart in GHZ states/non-frustrated systems.

Vanja Marić, Gianpaolo Torre, Fabio Franchini, Salvatore Marco Giampaolo

SciPost Phys. 12, 075 (2022) · published 24 February 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

Ginzburg-Landau theory of continuous phase transitions implicitly assumes that microscopic changes are negligible in determining the thermodynamic properties of the system. In this work we provide an example that clearly contrasts with this assumption. We show that topological frustration can change the nature of a second order quantum phase transition separating two different ordered phases. Even more remarkably, frustration is triggered simply by a suitable choice of boundary conditions in a 1D chain. While with every other BC each of two phases is characterized by its own local order parameter, with frustration no local order can survive. We construct string order parameters to distinguish the two phases, but, having proved that topological frustration is capable of altering the nature of a system's phase transition, our results pose a clear challenge to the current understanding of phase transitions in complex quantum systems.