Generalized Zeno effect and entanglement dynamics induced by fermion counting

Abstract

We study a one-dimensional lattice system of free fermions subjected to a generalized measurement process: the system exchanges particles with its environment, but each fermion leaving or entering the system is counted. In contrast to the freezing of dynamics due to frequent measurements of lattice site occupation numbers, a high rate of fermion counts induces fast fluctuations in the state of the system. Still, through numerical simulations of quantum trajectories and an analytical approach based on replica Keldysh field theory, we find that instantaneous correlations and entanglement properties of free fermions subjected to fermion counting and local occupation measurements are strikingly similar. We explain this similarity through a generalized Zeno effect induced by fermion counting and a universal long-wavelength description in terms of a nonlinear sigma model. The physical requirements underlying this universal emergent behavior are conservation of the total number of particles in the system and its environment, and conservation of the purity of the state of the system by keeping a full record of all measurement outcomes. For both types of measurement processes, we present strong evidence against the existence of a critical phase with logarithmic entanglement and conformal invariance. Instead, we identify a finite critical range of length scales on which signatures of conformal invariance are observable. While area-law entanglement is established beyond a scale that is exponentially large in the measurement rate, the upper boundary of the critical range is only algebraically large and thus numerically accessible. Our finding that these properties do not rely on particle number conservation has far reaching implications for measurement-induced phenomena beyond noninteracting fermions, such as charge sharpening in random quantum circuits or generic interacting systems.