Disparity between multipartite entangling and disentangling powers of unitaries: Even vs Odd

Abstract: We compare the multipartite entangling and disentangling powers of unitary operators by assessing their ability to generate or eliminate genuine multipartite entanglement. Our findings reveal that while diagonal unitary operators can exhibit equal entangling and disentangling powers, certain non-diagonal unitaries demonstrate an imbalance when acting on fully separable states, thereby extending the known disparity from bipartite systems to those with any number of parties. Counterintuitively, we construct classes of unitaries and their adjoints that display unequal entanglement generation capacities, behaving differently when applied to systems with an even number of qubits compared to those with an odd number. Further, we illustrate that this asymmetry can be simulated using physically realizable Hamiltonians: systems with an even number of qubits employ nearest-neighbor Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interactions, while those with an odd number utilize a combination of Heisenberg and DM interactions. Additionally, we present a circuit composed of random noncommuting unitaries, constructed from alternating layers of two-qubit Haar-random gates, to illustrate the discrepancy in the entangling and disentangling capabilities of unitaries.