Slow measurement-only dynamics of entanglement in Pauli subsystem codes

Abstract

We study the nonunitary dynamics of a class of quantum circuits based on stochastically measuring check operators of subsystem quantum error-correcting codes, such as the Bacon-Shor code and its various generalizations. Our focus is on how properties of the underlying code are imprinted onto the measurement-only dynamics. We find that in a large class of codes with nonlocal stabilizer generators, at late times there is generically a nonlocal contribution to the subsystem entanglement entropy that with the subsystem size. The nonlocal stabilizer generators can also induce slow dynamics, since depending on the rate of competing measurements the associated degrees of freedom can take exponentially long (in system size) to purify (i.e., disentangle from the environment when starting from a mixed state) to scramble (i.e., become entangled with the rest of the system when starting from a product state). Concretely, we consider circuits in which the nonlocal stabilizer generators of the underlying subsystem code take the form of subsystem symmetries. We present a systematic study of the phase diagrams and relevant time scales in two and three spatial dimensions for both Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) and non-CSS codes, focusing in particular on the link between slow measurement-only dynamics and the geometry of the subsystem symmetry. A key finding of our paper is that slowly purifying or scrambling degrees of freedom appear to emerge only in codes for which subsystem symmetries are nonlocally , a strict subset of those whose symmetries are simply nonlocal. We comment on the link between our results on subsystem codes and the phenomenon of Hilbert-space fragmentation in light of their shared algebraic structure. Published by the American Physical Society 2025