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Nature is stingy: Universality of Scrooge ensembles in quantum many-body systems

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arxiv 2601.00266 v3 pith:VSXI7KBA submitted 2026-01-01 quant-ph cond-mat.stat-mechmath-phmath.MP

Nature is stingy: Universality of Scrooge ensembles in quantum many-body systems

classification quant-ph cond-mat.stat-mechmath-phmath.MP
keywords scroogeensemblesquantumdesignglobalmany-bodyapproximatebehavior
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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Recent advances in quantum simulators allow direct experimental access to ensembles of pure states generated by measuring part of an isolated quantum many-body system. These projected ensembles encode fine-grained information beyond thermal expectation values and provide a new window into quantum thermalization. In chaotic dynamics, projected ensembles exhibit universal statistics governed by maximum-entropy principles, known as deep thermalization. At infinite temperature this universality is characterized by Haar-random ensembles. More generally, physical constraints such as finite temperature or conservation laws lead to Scrooge ensembles, which are maximally entropic distributions of pure states consistent with these constraints. Here we introduce Scrooge $k$-designs, which approximate Scrooge ensembles, and use this framework to sharpen the conditions under which Scrooge-like behavior emerges. We first show that global Scrooge designs arise from long-time chaotic unitary dynamics alone, without measurements. Second, we show that measuring a complementary subsystem of a scrambled global state drawn from a global Scrooge $2k$-design induces a local Scrooge $k$-design. Third, we show that a local Scrooge $k$-design arises from an arbitrary entangled state when the complementary system is measured in a scrambled basis induced by a unitary drawn from a Haar $2k$-design. These results show that the resources required to generate approximate Scrooge ensembles scale only with the desired degree of approximation, enabling efficient implementations. Complementing our analytical results, numerical simulations identify coherence, entanglement, non-stabilizerness, and information scrambling as essential ingredients for the emergence of Scrooge-like behavior. Together, our findings advance theoretical explanations for maximally entropic, information-stingy randomness in quantum many-body systems.

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Cited by 8 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. Exact Hilbert-space ergodicity from continuous monitoring

    quant-ph 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 8.0

    Continuous monitoring with jump operators forming a deformed unitary 1-design rigorously produces the Scrooge ensemble as the unique late-time equilibrium distribution of quantum trajectories for any target density matrix.

  2. Quantum matter is weakly entangled at low energies

    cond-mat.stat-mech 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 8.0

    Low-energy states of local Hamiltonians have half-system entanglement entropies upper-bounded by the thermal entropies of two fictitious systems whose combined energies match the state's energy.

  3. Exact Hilbert-space ergodicity from continuous monitoring

    quant-ph 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    Continuous monitoring with jump operators forming a deformed unitary 1-design rigorously enforces the Scrooge ensemble of any target density matrix σ as the unique equilibrium distribution of quantum trajectories.

  4. Projected logical ensembles in surface codes via the random-matrix theory of quantum dots

    quant-ph 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    For single-logical-qubit surface codes with uniform X rotations, the projected logical ensemble after syndrome extraction and maximum-likelihood decoding is isomorphic to scattering-matrix ensembles of chaotic quantum...

  5. Quantum resource localizability transitions in deep thermalization

    quant-ph 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    Quantum resource theories split into smoothly localizable (continuous local resource change) and threshold localizable (discontinuous jump past critical density) classes, driven by block sharpening, with predictions f...

  6. Chaos Emerge with Exceptional Points in Reset-Driven Floquet Dynamics

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    Tuning a chaos parameter drives an exceptional-point transition in reset-driven Floquet channel spectra from real eigenvalues in an ergodic regime to complex pairs in a chaotic regime, distinguishing multiple dynamica...

  7. Simple slow operators and quantum thermalization

    quant-ph 2026-04 conditional novelty 6.0

    Absence of simple slow operators implies that typical low-complexity states thermalize in quantum systems.

  8. Grand-Canonical Typicality

    quant-ph 2026-01 unverdicted novelty 5.0

    The paper establishes that typical states in a grand-canonical micro-canonical Hilbert subspace produce the grand-canonical density matrix and a GAP/Scrooge wave-function distribution for the subsystem.