Papers

The predictive performance of neural networks for receptor functional potency modeling depends on both molecular representations and prediction-head design. Using GLP-1R cAMP-related pEC50 prediction as the primary task, we jointly train a classical molecular encoder with a linear base head and a shallow quantum-circuit residual head that share the learned molecular representation. We evaluate the models using random and structure-group splits, include tuned Chemprop as a domain reference, and extend the evaluation to ADRB2 and MC4R. Under the GLP-1R structure-group split, the quantum-residual models reduce mean absolute error relative to the corresponding base models from 0.677 to 0.639 with a multilayer perceptron (MLP) encoder and from 0.680 to 0.641 with a graph neural network (GNN) encoder. In structural control experiments, a parameter-count-matched real-orthogonal control achieves similar predictive performance, suggesting that some quantum-residual gains may be associated with structured quadratic feature interactions. By combining receptor functional potency prediction with structural analysis of the quantum residual, this study provides empirical evidence to inform compact residual-head design and highlights the potential of quantum-circuit parameterizations for this task.

The real-time dynamics of quantum phase transitions in open systems coupled to finite-temperature environments sits at the heart of contemporary condensed-matter and quantum-information science. Here, invoking a Schwinger-Keldysh formalism, we uncover that, within the coherence-dominated regime of critical real-time evolution, a dissipative coupling deemed naively irrelevant determines, counterintuitively, the longest timescale that holds sway. Possessing a well-defined temporal scaling dimension, it engenders a novel dissipation-regression scaling that systematically reproduces the unusual Kibble-Zurek scaling and relaxation observed in recent numerical studies. By contrast, dissipation-dominated dynamics behaves qualitatively differently. There, furthermore, we show that the discretized and diagonalized formulations of the same open quantum Ising chain realize distinct universality classes.

We examine the response of a two level Unruh-DeWitt (UD) detector interacting with the Kaluza-Klein (KK) mass modes of a bulk scalar field in extra dimensional models. Considering two of the promising extra dimensional models with distinct compactifications, such as large, flat extra dimensions in the Arkani Hamed, Dimopoulos & Dvali (ADD) framework and warped extra dimensions in the Randall-Sundrum (RS) scenario, we compute the profile function of the detector. We extend this computation to the 6 dimensional doubly compactified spacetime geometry. The profile function of the detector has been examined as a function of the energy gap of the detector, the compactification radius of the extra dimension, and the dimensionality of spacetime, requiring the chosen parameter space appropriately such that the gauge hierarchy problem is duly addressed. We find that the pattern of the profile function is dictated by the spacing of the KK mass spectrum and the resolution of the detector. For ADD model, the spacing between successive KK modes decreases with the increasing compactification radius, yielding a smoothly increasing continuum pattern in the profile function. Whereas for the RS warped geometry model, a tiny deviation in the radius of the extra dimension produces a large change in the same, resulting a sharp increment. The resolvability of the KK mode structure is sensitive to the underlying geometry of the spacetime, providing a qualitative distinction between flat and warped extra dimensional scenarios within the UD detector framework.

Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is a powerful mechanism for distributed sensing in optical fibers, as the Brillouin response is highly sensitive to local material parameters. Assuming the input probe is a quantum state, we develop a quantum-information-theoretic framework for SBS-based fiber sensing and intrusion detection. Starting from a linearized opto-acoustic Hamiltonian, we derive an effective input-output relation for a short fiber segment. We then model each fiber segment as a single-mode bosonic Gaussian channel and the entire fiber as a cascade of quantum channels. We then compute the quantum Fisher information for general SBS-dependent parameters and identify optimal measurement settings to achieve the quantum limit, comparing them with receiver-constrained strategies such as heterodyne detection and photon counting. In addition, we propose an adaptive approach that achieves first-order asymptotic optimality and provides a novel second-order correction to address preliminary miscalibration. As an application, we apply the framework to the fiber-tapping detection problem.

We study quantum-assisted balanced rendezvous on the $d$-dimensional hypercube in a one-step two-agent quantum-walk framework, where the two agents move the same Hamming distance and meet at a common midpoint. The key structure is a projective $t$-sphere resolution, which governs exact finite-dimensional quantum attainment. Its scalar analogue recovers the corresponding classical characterization. We characterize finite-dimensional quantum attainment of the no-signalling benchmark, construct quantum strategies from projective sphere resolutions, and establish a rigidity theorem for optimal finite-dimensional strategies. A marked difference appears between nearest-neighbor and higher-cardinality updates: quantum advantage can occur in the former, whereas in the latter the geometry of the relevant Hamming spheres rules out exact finite-dimensional attainment of the no-signalling value. Together, these results connect quantum-walk dynamics, Hamming-sphere geometry, and quantum rendezvous within the quantum Bernoulli noises (QBN) framework.

The Markov length, the length scale governing the exponential decay of conditional mutual information (CMI) in a quantum many-body state, has proven useful for characterizing mixed-state phases of matter. Nevertheless, we show that a state's Markov length is not generally stable under weak local channels. The failure of stability occurs already at a pure product state. We demonstrate this explicitly in a one-dimensional fermionic chain, where a fine-tuned depth-two circuit of nearest-neighbor Gaussian channels maps the vacuum to a state whose CMI decays algebraically and whose Markov length is therefore infinite, even when the channels are taken arbitrarily close to the identity. The algebraic decay is rooted in the nonanalyticity of the von Neumann entropy at rank-deficient density operators. We exhibit an analogous instability on an ordinary qubit chain. More generally, we show that the Markov length is unstable in any translation-invariant state with even a single rank-deficient reduced density operator. These results pose a challenge to recent definitions of mixed-state phase equivalence based on the Markov length.

A bipartite observable is stable when its idealized responses are continuous. We show that it is NIP exactly when they are of the first Baire class. They then form a Rosenthal compactum, and the dividing lines of Shelah in model theory, together with the classification of Rosenthal compacta of Todorčević, acquire a physical meaning. For observables, mixtures of states make every hereditarily separable compactum of idealized responses metrizable, and the Todorčević trichotomy becomes a classification into three classes. Each class contains a physical order: the comparison of photon numbers, the comparison of positions, and the causal order of spacetime, whose idealized responses are not first countable because a light cone can shrink to a point; the comparison of two phases on a circle joins it there. Each of the seven minimal families of the heptachotomy, which Argyros, Dodos and Kanellopoulos extracted from the methods of Todorčević, is realized by a tree of preparations of photons, of a particle in a box, or of a spin chain read by a probe; the spin chain also shows that NIP, unlike its uniform version, is not symmetric between the two parties. Finally, for the Ising model in a transverse field we show that, in the ordered phase, the responses of the two pure phases form split pairs whose midpoints, the responses of the symmetric state, form an uncountable discrete set; the proof uses a Lee–Yang theorem for this model.

We give a polynomial-time randomized classical algorithm that approximates the largest eigenvalue $\lambda_{\max}$ of a traceless quartic fermionic Hamiltonian $H$ on $n$ modes. The algorithm achieves energy at least $\lambda_{\max}/O(\sqrt n)$ and outputs either a fermionic Gaussian state or a polynomially sparse state in the Fock basis. This is achieved through a new upper bound on $\lambda_{\max}$ in terms of the maximum energy of a Gaussian state and $\sqrt{2^{-n}\operatorname{Tr}(H^2)}$.

Sierra and Townsend (ST) [1] showed that the “absorption spectrum” model of Connes [2] arises as the lowest-Landau-level (LLL) limit of a charged particle in crossed electric and magnetic fields, and suggested that the higher Landau levels supply the fluctuation part of the Riemann-zero counting function $N(E)$. Within the approximation used by ST we construct the eigenfunctions of an arbitrary Landau level $n$ and derive their asymptotics at the two box boundaries that ST identify. The boundary condition is the same as for $n=0$ up to an $E$-independent phase $(-\ii)^n$, so no $\ln E$ term arises for any fixed $n$. We also note that the $\ln E$ term in the semiclassical Eq.~(29) of ST is the first-order shift of the smooth LLL counting function, $E\to E+\gamma z^2$.

A photon has the strange property that it travels along a null interval with zero proper time, hence its emission and absorption points are, in a sense, a singular event. For their part, the emission and absorption processes have a finite duration which determines the spectral content of the photon. The question in the title points to the conceptual difficulty in `stitching' together these three intervals, which all correspond to the same physical entity but have fundamentally incompatible temporal descriptions. A previously developed model for quantum wavefunction propagation solves this apparent dilemma by formulating the life cycle of a photon in terms of recursive Fourier transforms on dual spaces. Because it doesn't treat space as dependent on time, and it is built on the Fourier transform whose phase is an invariant in special relativity as well as the foundation of the uncertainty principle, the model is a promising candidate framework for making quantum mechanics compatible with relativity. The model proposes to serve as an improved Klein-Gordon equation, or relativistically compatible replacement for Schrödinger's equation.

Exact permutation covariance does not itself supply a sparse metric geometry. For permutation-covariant, full-support $k$-body interaction orbits, the incident interaction norm scales as $\binom{N-1}{k-1}|J_N|\|h\|$; such orbits cannot have uniformly finite range in metrics of diverging diameter. A permutation-invariant Hamiltonian diagonal in the graph basis has ground-state multiplicity at least $N!/|\mathrm{Aut}(G)|$ whenever $G$ is a ground graph. We give a quantitative version for approximately symmetric energies, together with fixed-radius connectivity and unitary-isometry obstructions. The trace-distance asymmetry of an arbitrary state also bounds its probability of selecting one labeled graph. We then construct two exactly solvable finite relational history Hamiltonians. A cyclic clock with a reversible incidence update has a unique ground state; gauge reduction yields a cycle Laplacian with a rank-one pin and the exact gap $\Delta_{N,L}=E_* (1-\cos\theta_L)$, where $\tan(L\theta_L/2)=1/\sin\theta_L$ and $0<\theta_L<\pi/L$. In particular, $\Delta_{N,L}/E_*=\pi^2/(2L^2)-2\pi^2/L^3+O(L^{-4})$, independently of the number of vertices. In an alternative order-free architecture, one clock qubit per unordered pair gives commuting four-local terms, $2^N$ ground states and a size-independent gap $E_*(1-1/\sqrt2)$. A fixed-weight control penalty selects $\binom Nq$ ground states without reducing the gap. These exact finite results expose clock and locality resource tradeoffs; they do not establish an emergent geometric phase.

We study byte-level autoregressive language models whose hidden state is a small quantum register, whose transitions are learned token-conditioned quantum channels, and whose next-byte probabilities come directly from Born-rule measurements without a learned classical vocabulary projection or softmax. In the fixed-width recurrent setting, unitary dynamics cannot contract or reset stored distinctions; experimentally, unitary recurrence loses to its retrained one-token control in every tested variant. Introducing learned dissipation, then token-conditioned dissipative gating, yields useful memory beyond one token. The gated model improves test negative log-likelihood by 0.20 +/- 0.03 nats/byte over retrained parameter-matched one-token controls at context length 12, and by 0.29-0.33 at longer contexts, but never beats retrained two-token controls. A key-value recall benchmark shows a width-dependent threshold: one stored pair meets the pre-registered accuracy bar at 4-5 memory qubits, two pairs at 6-7, and three pairs remain unsolved. This is consistent with, but does not establish, a capacity explanation for the short effective memory horizon. As a secondary result, one-qubit models reach lower stationary memory entropy than a heuristically optimized classical predictive frontier at matched error in 9/9 seeds. On IBM Heron hardware, computational-basis memory-register distributions show signal against a uniform null in 12/12 circuits across prefixes of up to 12 tokens, next-bit probabilities pass pre-registered accuracy bars at four-token prefixes, and bytes are generated autoregressively by sampling physically measured bit probabilities. The tested models are classically simulable and substantially worse than classical n-gram baselines. We claim no computational quantum advantage.

Frustrated magnets host rich emergent behavior because competing interactions generate dense manifolds of low-energy states. The Ising Shastry-Sutherland model is a paradigmatic setting, motivated experimentally by Ising-like rare-earth tetraborides such as TmB$_4$ and ErB$_4$, whose field-induced magnetization plateaus have motivated extensive microscopic modeling. Yet how tunable quantum fluctuations reorganize this material-motivated phase diagram remains largely unexplored. Here, we realize a transverse- and longitudinal-field Ising model on the Shastry-Sutherland lattice using a programmable Rydberg-atom array. We map its quantum phase diagram using density matrix renormalization group calculations and probe corresponding signatures experimentally in arrays containing more than 110 atoms. Beyond the established classical phases, the calculations identify two regimes absent in the classical limit and stabilized at finite transverse field: a $2/5$ filling plateau whose finite stability region emerges from a classically degenerate phase boundary and a symmetry-preserving quantum-dimer regime replacing classically selected collinear order. Experiments on finite open arrays reveal signatures consistent with these regimes across three boundary-pinning conditions, with the resulting response maps agreeing qualitatively with the calculated phase diagram. Our results establish programmable Rydberg-atom arrays as tools for exploring frustrated, material-motivated Hamiltonians and motivate searches for new, quantum-driven magnetization plateaus and quantum-dimer behavior in ErB$_4$ under a transverse field or in strain-tuned TmB$_4$.

We introduce coset lifted product (CLP) codes, a family of quantum LDPC codes that combine the protograph structure of lifted product codes with the coset action of Aydin, Tamo, and Barg \cite{AydinTamoBarg2026}. Given a finite group $G$, a subgroup $H \le G$ that need not be normal, a protograph $A$ over $\mathbb F_2[G]$, and a protograph $B$ over $\mathbb F_2[N_G(H)]$, the two protographs act on the cosets $G/H$ from the left and from the right to produce quantum CSS codes. Further, for groups of odd order, we give an explicit formula for the dimension as a sum over the irreducible representations $\rho$ of $G$ of hypergraph product dimensions. A search over $14,843$ pairs $(G,H)$ with $H$ restricted to be non-normal and $120 \le n \le 400$ yields certified codes that exceed the best published value of $Q=kd^2/n$ at check weights $6,7$ and $9$, i.e., we obtain $[[360,20,20]]$ at $w=6$, a $[[360,24,20]]$ code at $w=7$, and codes $[[252,16,18]]$ and $[[288,16,20]]$ at $w=9$. Our search also produce high-distance codes with parameters $[[168,10,14]], [[240,8,20]]$ at $w=6$ and $[[216,8,18]]$ at $w=7$.

In this note, we study a broad class of time-dependent and irreversible dynamics for quantum spin systems in both finite and infinite volume. We develop a simple and flexible strategy for expanding commutators of the form $[A,\tau_{s,t} \, B]$ in terms of self-avoiding paths of sets, where $A$ and $B$ are local operators and $\tau_{s,t}$ is the Heisenberg time evolution. This adaptive Dyson expansion requires no backwards time evolution and is thus also applicable to irreversible dynamics. Furthermore, we discuss how such an expansion directly implies Lieb-Robinson bounds. A central feature of our result is that the obtained Lieb-Robinson bounds are independent of any Hamiltonian and dissipative on-site terms of the generator.

The strong Szegő theorem and the Fisher-Hartwig formula describe the asymptotic behavior of determinants obtained by restricting translationally invariant operators to large finite regions. In particular, Szegő's theorem states that, beyond the leading extensive contribution to such a determinant, there is a universal finite correction, $\sum_{r>0} rV_rV_{-r}$ where $V_r$ are the Fourier coefficients of the logarithm of the symbol. Although this formula appears throughout analysis and mathematical physics, the origin of its quadratic form and of the weight $r$ is often obscured in its standard analytic derivations. We develop an elementary picture in which the strong Szegő term arises from boundary leakage: paths contributing to the matrix exponential leave the finite interval and subsequently return. Counting the shortest such excursions immediately produces the factor $r$. We then show that an isolated boundary contributes exactly one half of the strong Szegő correction, while the two boundaries of a long interval decouple. For finite-range matrices this gives a rigorous and intuitive elementary derivation of the asymptotics, with extensions to sufficiently rapidly decaying interactions. A complementary free-fermion argument provides a physical interpretation of the same cancellation mechanism. Numerical examples illustrate the asymtotics in the well controlled regime, the Fisher Hartwig logarithmic correction. The boundary formulation does not itself require translation invariance and therefore suggests natural extensions to disordered systems, higher dimensions, and symbols with internal matrix structure. To illustrate this we numerically go beyond the formal applicability region of the Szegő formula, considering slow decay and disordered cases, and showing in some cases a robustness of the approach even for slowly decaying but disordered potentials.

Quantum LDPC codes promise to reduce the overhead of fault-tolerant quantum computation, but their practical use requires efficient logical gates, measurements, and access to non-Clifford resources. Here, we develop a complete set of computational primitives for La-cross hypergraph product codes. For a subclass of these codes, we show that seed automorphisms together with fold-transversal gates generate the full logical Clifford group up to Pauli corrections. We further prove that every rank one logical operator admits $D$ pairwise disjoint physical representatives, enabling parallel gauging and a space–time tradeoff for logical measurements. Finally, we construct an addressable surface code interface for injecting externally prepared resource states into selected logical qubits. Together, these results establish La-cross codes as a simple, low-connectivity generalisation of surface code computation, retaining analogous computational primitives while providing a complete Clifford+$T$ instruction set across multiple encoded qubits.

We construct exact deterministic circuits for transposing and inverting an unknown qutrit unitary $U\in\mathrm{SU}(3)$ using only forward queries. Three queries prepare a catalyst independently of the input state. Four further queries implement transposition while returning the catalyst unchanged and uncorrelated with the output. Two uses within an antisymmetric encoding implement inversion with eight processing queries and return the same catalyst. Reusing the catalyst implements $m$ transpositions or inversions with $3+4m$ or $3+8m$ total queries, respectively. More generally, we prove that exact transposition and inversion of an unknown $U\in\mathrm{SU}(d)$, $d\ge2$, require at least $d+1$ and $d^2-1$ processing queries, respectively, in fixed causal order. These processing bounds hold for any program state prepared independently of the input state using finitely many forward queries, even if that state is consumed during processing. Both our catalytic qutrit algorithms attain their respective bounds. Moreover, exact qutrit transposition with four processing queries requires at least three preparation queries, and our construction attains this bound.

Quantum Zeno dynamics constrains a continuously monitored system to measurement-selected subspaces. Here we show that the structure of such Zeno subspaces can be governed by a latent symmetry, namely a symmetry that is absent from the geometry of the underlying physical network. We consider a minimal circuit-QED network of coupled microwave resonators subject to quantum-nondemolition (QND) monitoring of local photon occupations. Two distinguished resonators are geometrically inequivalent, yet are exactly exchanged by a latent symmetry of the network. Strong monitoring partitions the single-excitation Hilbert space into three quantum-Zeno subspaces, two of which correspond to localization on the distinguished resonators. Latent symmetry exactly exchanges these two Zeno subspaces and enforces identical escape and residence statistics despite their different microscopic environments. In the strong-measurement regime their residence times grow linearly with the measurement strength and diverge in the ideal Zeno limit, where the measurement subspaces become dynamically disconnected. Our results show that latent symmetry can act as a hidden organizing principle of quantum Zeno dynamics, imposing exact relations between measurement-selected subspaces that are geometrically inequivalent in the physical system.

We investigate the construction of unitary $t$-designs in a multi-photon Fock space on programmable linear-optical interferometers. Using the frame potential as the optimization objective, we identify architectures that realize approximate unitary 1- and 2-designs with considerably fewer controllable parameters than required for universal linear optics. For example, we find numerical evidence suggesting that for unitary 1-designs, the required number of programmable parameters scales empirically as $2d$ with the number of modes $d$, instead of $O(d^2)$. We benchmark the resulting ensembles using single-photon transition probabilities and average channel fidelities. Furthermore, as a practical result, we develop a photon-number estimation protocol for multi-photon Fock states that leverages these optimized 1- and 2-designs. Our findings demonstrate that shallow interferometers can accurately reproduce Haar-averaged first moments, while second-moment-sensitive observables provide a considerably stricter test for approximate unitary 2-designs.

We study symmetries and anomalies of dissipative Majorana chains described by Lindblad dynamics. Using the operator-state mapping, we represent the Lindbladian as a non-Hermitian operator on a doubled Hilbert space. In this formulation, the ket and bra contours admit strong fermion parities and strong translations, while their diagonal combinations define weak symmetries. For even and odd chain lengths, we diagnose anomalies by comparing symmetry algebras with and without weak fermion-parity defects. These algebras retain the lattice precursor of the modulo-$8$ anomaly of the closed Majorana chain and exhibit projective relations between strong fermion parity and weak translation, as well as between weak fermion parity and strong translation, which are intrinsic to open quantum systems. We establish the IR correspondence between the lattice symmetry algebras and those of the doubled Majorana CFT in four spin sectors, identifying chiral fermion parities emanated from the lattice translations. Finally, we develop the lattice bosonization of the dissipative chain. For even length with collective energy dephasing, combining the defect and no-defect sectors and imposing GSO projections gives rise to an Ising Lindbladian with non-invertible Kramers–Wannier symmetries descending from the anomalous strong translation and fermion parity of the Majorana chain. For odd length, constructing mutually commuting ket- and bra-sector spin operators instead yields an Ising Lindbladian with a Kramers–Wannier duality defect. Our results provide a controlled framework for extending lattice anomalies and non-invertible symmetries to open quantum systems.

Quantum error-correcting codes on graph geometries beyond regular euclidean lattices have emerged as a promising route toward robust quantum information processing. A major challenge in quantum error correction is the trade-off between favorable properties of codes constructed in high dimensionality and the need for locality in practical implementations on near-term hardware. Sparse intermediate geometries may combine the advantages of both, but how their structure governs quantum information dynamics and code performance remains unclear. Here we show that the spectral dimension $d_s$, defined from the low-energy spectrum of the graph Laplacian, is the universal parameter connecting these properties. Using Floquet random Clifford circuits on two distinct sparse graph architectures with tunable spectral dimension, we find that $d_s$ governs both quantum information spreading and the scaling of the resulting quantum error-correcting code distance. We identify a geometry-induced entanglement phase transition from localized area-law to ergodic volume-law, whose universality is determined by $d_s$ and exhibits long-range percolation criticality. In the ergodic phase, the circuit acts as a CSS code encoder whose code distance is set by the competition between two logical sectors — the cost of severing the graph and the length of its shortest winding cycle — which connectivity pushes in opposite directions. The spectral dimension organizes this trade-off, highlighting a maximum at intermediate $d_s$ retaining sparse connectivity and physical realizability.

Spin-dependent forces enable independent control over the effective frequencies of bosonic motional modes and their coupling strengths to spins in trapped-ion spin-boson quantum simulators. We show that the relative signs of these effective frequencies provide an important programmable resource for engineering distinct multimode dynamics. Focusing on a two-mode quantum Rabi model, changing the frequencies of the two modes from the same sign to opposite signs reorganizes the resonance structure of the spin-mediated bosonic interaction, converting the dominant resonant process from excitation exchange to correlated pair creation. In the dispersive regime, the resulting effective interaction realizes a two-mode parametric amplifier with stable oscillatory, critical, and exponentially amplifying regimes separated by a spin-dependent instability threshold. Across these regimes, the dynamics generate collective-quadrature squeezing and bipartite motional entanglement. Preparing the spin in a coherent superposition further allows different spin components to experience distinct stability regimes, generating tripartite spin-boson entanglement, while spin postselection can coherently combine the conditional bosonic branches to generate non-Gaussian entangled bosonic states. Finally, we outline an implementation using parameters within reach of current trapped-ion platforms.

By studying the interplay of geometric frustration with Aharonov-Bohm fluxes in three dimensions, we unveil a rich playground exhibiting topological semimetallic ground states with orbital magnetic dipole, quadrupole and ferrotoroidic orders, akin to spin patterns in classical spin ices - a class of phenomena which we dub frustrated topological orbital magnetism. We demonstrate that the ground-state toroidizations underpinned by non-Abelian topological nodal lines induce measurable current-induced Hall phenomena. We further find that distinct 2-in-2-out and 3-in-1-out frustrated orbital current patterns can be associated with topological Weyl node charges, and corresponding anisotropic linear and nonlinear Hall effects. We propose signatures for experimental validation of distinct frustrated topological orbital magnetic orders in candidate materials.

The integration of low-loss dielectrics into superconducting circuits is of importance to the functionality of quantum computers and sensors. In this work, we fabricate and measure niobium resonators atop few-layer, epitaxial hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy on a sapphire substrate and compare against a control counterpart without hBN. We conduct radiofrequency measurements which probe the responses to power, temperature, and temporal fluctuations of two-level systems. The resonators integrating hBN maintain low dielectric loss with a low-power internal loss tangent on the order of $10^{-6}$, and demonstrate hBN can be added to the conventional superconducting qubit stack with minimal degradation of the quality factor. This research represents a first step towards a materials-driven strategy to eliminate phonon-mediated correlated errors in solid-state quantum systems, which leverages the thermal properties of 2D materials to prevent athermal phonons excited in the device substrate from transmitting across the superconductor-substrate interface. The same technique applied to quantum sensors would maximize phonon collection by blocking phonons from entering passive metal films.

A periodically driven quantum many-body system is believed to approach a locally infinite-temperature-like state as dictated by the ergodicity hypothesis, when all the couplings/parameters are of the same order. When the drive is stronger than a threshold value, a large class of systems is shown to break this mandate, exhibiting Dynamical Freezing (DF): ergodicity is broken due to the emergence of local operators with permanent memory of their initial values (PRX 11, 021008, 2021). However, an exception to DF has recently been noted in a particular setting (PRX 16, 011041, 2026). Here we identify the condition for ergodicity-breaking in a system under strong drive, and show how to stabilize DF by exact, local engineering. We further show that the Floquet Hamiltonian $H_{eff} = (i/T)\ln{[U(T)]}$ is non-local when ordered by spin-flips, in a non-DF system, while it turns quasi-local under our simple, local DF engineering that keeps the Hamiltonian $H(t)$ still non-integrable at each $t$. This perplexing non-universality is absent in equilibrium, where non-integrability is believed to imply ergodicity and thermalization universally. Our work paves a way to engineering novel ergodicity-broken interacting Floquet phases of matter in various quantum platforms, and also endows DF-assisted quantum error mitigation and state stabilization techniques (see Nature 653, 1027 (2026)) with unprecedented versatility and flexibility.

Applications of quantum devices and simulators require an accurate understanding of their dynamics as well as the effects of environmental noise. While some sources of noise can be modeled as Markovian dissipation, coupling to resonators or vibrational modes often produces non-Markovian dynamics as well, making it difficult to characterize the system, particularly for interacting many-body systems. Here, we identify a broad class of exactly solvable many-body quantum systems with both non-Markovian dynamics and Markovian dissipation. We consider a prototypical model of spins coupled to lossy bosonic modes that mediate Ising-type interactions. We exclude a transverse field but allow local spin dissipation that need not commute with the interactions, including dephasing, relaxation, pumping, and even processes that generate coherences. Using an exact stochastic representation, we decouple the many-body dynamics into the evolution of individual spins, yielding exact spin observables and correlations without adiabatically eliminating the bosons. In the Markovian limit, our solutions describe Ising models with correlated dephasing and nonreciprocal interactions. An example of spin squeezing shows that both the achievable squeezing and its optimal preparation time depend strongly on the interplay between non-Markovian dynamics and Markovian dissipation.

We study entanglement distillation under operations that remain completely positive under partial-transpose conjugation, a.k.a. PPT channels, in the standard quantum Shannon theory regime of asymptotically vanishing but non-zero error. Our main results are: (a) a regularised formula for the PPT distillable entanglement in terms of a measured-relative-entropy-like quantity; and (b) two different single-letter converses, one based on operator quadratic forms and the other on Hirschman's strengthening of the Hadamard three-line theorem. As an immediate application of (b), we show that the PPT distillable entanglement can be strictly smaller than the regularised Rains bound, thereby resolving an open problem in the theory of entanglement manipulation [Regula et al., NJP 21:103017, 2019]. A gap appears already for $3\times 3$ Werner states: at antisymmetric weight $25/26$, a certified upper bound of $0.62107$ ebits lies below the (regularised) Rains bound, which equals $\frac{25}{26} \log_2 5 - \log_2 3 \approx 0.64766$ ebits. On a different note, (a) implies a faithful lower bound on the PPT distillable entanglement in terms of the entanglement negativity, which provides a quantitative counterpart to the qualitatively known fact that any NPT state is PPT distillable [Eggeling et al., PRL 87:257902, 2001].

Entanglement and non-stabilizerness are complementary resources underlying the complexity of quantum states, yet extracting either quantity from large quantum circuits generally requires exponentially scaling resources. In diagrammatic approaches to quantum computation, such as the ZX-calculus, both quantities likewise typically require expensive tensor contractions that are not native to graphical rewriting. Here we show that both entanglement and magic can be efficiently estimated directly from ZX-diagrams. Flow enables efficient extraction of a normal form separating a potentially extensively entangled graph-state backbone from non-Clifford Pauli gadgets. This structure yields additive upper and lower bounds on bipartite entanglement entropy, which we further tighten through a preprocessing procedure that removes or merges redundant non-Clifford contributions. The same normal form gives an upper bound on logarithmic stabilizer extent. We benchmark these methods in random unitary and monitored circuits, and a circuit combining Trotterized Hamiltonian evolution with Clifford layers, finding that the resulting bounds remain informative even at large qubit numbers, circuit depths, and internal spider counts. Our results provide scalable probes of entanglement and non-stabilizerness of ZX-diagrams and establish a bridge between ZX-calculus and quantum many-body resource characterization, with applications across quantum computing, quantum information, and condensed-matter physics.

Building a quantum model involves a tradeoff: how complex the circuit should be, and how much training data it needs. Caro et al. show that models with fewer trainable gates need less training data to generalize well. Q-FLAIR shows that a quantum feature-map circuit can be grown gate-by-gate, stopping once further growth stops improving the training loss. We ask whether these two results combine into a predictable scaling law. Does Q-FLAIR's own stopping rule pick larger or smaller circuits as training data grows? Does the resulting generalization behavior track Caro et al.'s bound? We reimplement Q-FLAIR's growth mechanism faithfully, including its analytic reconstruction and exact stopping rule. We run it on full-resolution (784-pixel) MNIST 3-vs-5 classification, at five training-set sizes from N = 2000 to 10000. We then fine-tune each resulting circuit, so we can measure Caro et al.'s notion of active gates, K. We find no predictable relationship between training-set size and the circuit size Q-FLAIR converges to. Circuit size and test accuracy both vary non-monotonically with N, and seed-to-seed variance is nearly as large as any trend across N. The empirical generalization gap never exceeds Caro et al.'s bound in 14 of 15 runs, so the bound holds as a valid guarantee in those runs. But the gap correlates only weakly with the bound's value (r = 0.12). This shows that K does not explain most of the variation we observe. Why a valid guarantee can coexist with such weak predictive power remains an open question, and answering it may be necessary before circuit depth and training data size can be jointly optimized in practice.