Hardness of observing strong-to-weak symmetry breaking

Abstract

Spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) is the cornerstone of our understanding of quantum phases of matter. Recent works have generalized this concept to the domain of mixed states in open quantum systems, where symmetries can be realized in two distinct ways dubbed strong and weak. Novel intrinsically mixed phases of quantum matter can then be defined by the spontaneous breaking of strong symmetry down to weak symmetry. However, proposed order parameters for strong-to-weak SSB (based on mixed-state fidelities or purities) seem to require exponentially many copies of the state, raising the question: is it possible to efficiently detect strong-to-weak SSB in general? Here we answer this question negatively in the paradigmatic cases of $Z_2$ and $U(1)$ symmetries. We construct ensembles of pseudorandom mixed states that do not break the strong symmetry, yet are computationally indistinguishable from states that do. This rules out the existence of efficient state-agnostic protocols to detect strong-to-weak SSB.