Non-Invertible Symmetries Mixing with Witt Non-Trivial Quantum Cellular Automata

Abstract:Self-dualities and the stacking of symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases are basic operations on quantum many-body systems. For a $\mathbb{Z}_p$ one-form symmetry in 3+1d these correspond to the Kramers-Wannier-Wegner duality $S$, which is the gauging operation underlying non-invertible duality symmetries, and the stacking of a 1-form symmetry SPT $T$. In the continuum, they form a central extension of $PSL(2,\mathbb{Z}_4)$ for $p=2$, and of $SL(2,\mathbb{Z}_p)$ for odd primes $p$, whose central elements are invertible theories with purely gravitational response. These central extensions are governed by a twisted, graded generalization of the Witt group of abelian anyon theories, which we determine. For $p=2$ the resulting group is the single-qubit Clifford group, with duality and entangler acting as the Hadamard and phase gates. We realize this entire structure microscopically as quantum cellular automata (QCA) acting on a certain local operator algebra associated with a spin lattice Hilbert space on a cubic lattice. Specifically, our local operator algebra is built by starting with all local operators commuting with a $\mathbb{Z}_p$ 1-form symmetry, and taking the quotient by all the (local) 1-form symmetry generators. The central elements can always be extended to the full tensor product algebra with a uniquely defined QCA class. For $p=2$ they are generated by the non-trivial semion QCA, and for odd prime $p$ they are generated by the non-trivial $\mathbb{Z}_p$ Clifford QCA. Consequently the lattice fusion rules reproduce the continuum ones only up to these QCAs and lattice translations, giving rise to fusion rules refined by QCAs.

Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el); High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th); Quantum Algebra (math.QA)

arXiv:2607.21698 [quant-ph]

(or arXiv:2607.21698v1 [quant-ph] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2607.21698 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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