Local spreading of stabilizer Rényi entropy in a brickwork random Clifford circuit

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Authors: Somnath Maity, Ryusuke Hamazaki
Cited by: 4
References: 51

Abstract

Nonstabilizerness, or magic, constitutes a fundamental resource for quantum computation and a crucial ingredient for quantum advantage. Recent progress has substantially advanced the characterization of magic in many-body quantum systems, with stabilizer Rényi entropy (SRE) emerging as a computable and experimentally accessible measure. In this work, we investigate the spreading of SRE in terms of single-qubit reduced density matrices, where an initial product state that contains magic in a local region evolves under brickwork random Clifford circuits. For the case with Haar-random local Clifford gates, we find that the spreading profile exhibits a diffusive structure within a ballistic light cone when viewed through a normalized version of single-qubit SRE, despite the absence of explicit conserved charges. We further examine the robustness of this nonballistic behavior of the normalized single-qubit SRE spreading by extending the analysis to a restricted Clifford circuit, where we unveil a superdiffusive spreading. Finally, we discuss that a similar nonballistic spreading within the light cone is also observed for another indicator of the magic, i.e., the robustness of magic.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Quantum many-body systems Quantum Information and Cryptography Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture

Publication details

Journal / source
Physical Review Research
Publisher
American Physical Society (APS)
Volume
8
Issue
1
Publication date
25 February 2026
Language
EN