Entanglement and operator correlation signatures of many-body quantum Zeno phases in inefficiently monitored noisy systems

Abstract: The interplay between information-scrambling Hamiltonians and local continuous measurements hosts platforms for exotic measurement-induced phase transition in out-of-equilibrium steady states. Here, we consider such transitions under the addition of local random white noise and measurement inefficiency in a XX spin chain. We identify a non-monotonic dependence on the local noise strength in both the averaged entanglement and operator correlations, specifically the subsystem parity variance. While the non-monotonicity persists at any finite efficiency for the operator correlations, it disappears at finite inefficiency for the entanglement. The analysis of scaling with the system size in a finite length chain indicates that, at finite efficiency, this effect leads to distinct MiPTs for operator correlations and entanglement. Our result hints at a difference between area-law entanglement scaling and Zeno-localized phases for inefficient monitoring.