Exploring large-scale entanglement in quantum simulation

Entanglement is a distinguishing feature of quantum many-body systems, and uncovering the entanglement structure for large particle numbers in quantum simulation experiments is a fundamental challenge in quantum information science¹. Here we perform experimental investigations of entanglement on the basis of the entanglement Hamiltonian (EH)² as an effective description of the reduced density operator for large subsystems. We prepare ground and excited states of a one-dimensional XXZ Heisenberg chain on a 51-ion programmable quantum simulator³ and perform sample-efficient 'learning' of the EH for subsystems of up to 20 lattice sites⁴. Our experiments provide compelling evidence for a local structure of the EH. To our knowledge, this observation marks the first instance of confirming the fundamental predictions of quantum field theory by Bisognano and Wichmann^5,6, adapted to lattice models that represent correlated quantum matter. The reduced state takes the form of a Gibbs ensemble, with a spatially varying temperature profile as a signature of entanglement². Our results also show the transition from area- to volume-law scaling⁷ of von Neumann entanglement entropies from ground to excited states. As we venture towards achieving quantum advantage, we anticipate that our findings and methods have wide-ranging applicability to revealing and understanding entanglement in many-body problems with local interactions including higher spatial dimensions.