Revealing measurement-induced phase transitions by pre-selection

Abstract: Pushing forward the understanding of general non-unitary dynamics in controlled quantum platforms has been fueled by the recent discovery of measurement-induced phases and phase transitions. So far, these transitions remained largely elusive, since they are masked in standard quantum mechanical observables due to the randomness of measurement outcomes. Here, we establish a general scheme -- pre-selection -- to make them observable: The outcome randomness is broken explicitly by steering the system towards a representative state, which corresponds to one out of exponentially many possible measurement outcomes. Remarkably, this steering can be chosen so gently that the basic properties of the underlying measurement-induced transition, such as entanglement structure and critical exponents, are not modified. Pre-selection introduces a unique dark or absorbing state with macroscopic order, replacing the maximally mixed stationary state of the unconditioned measurement trajectory ensemble. This creates a link of measurement-induced phase transitions to new forms of quantum absorbing state transitions, which can be detected by standard means via a local order parameter. This insight further enables a quantum simulation strategy, determining the underlying universality class in state-of-the-art quantum platforms without measurement readout.