Abstract: Quantum entanglement is central to our understanding of how isolated quantum many-body systems reach thermodynamic equilibrium. However, entanglement is notoriously delicate and difficult to observe, prompting a natural question: how much entanglement is truly necessary to reproduce the observable predictions of thermodynamics? In this talk, I will introduce special models of quantum dynamics whose late-time states have limited entanglement, yet are practically indistinguishable, in a rigorous sense, from the maximally-entangled states conventionally thought to describe thermal equilibrium. This property, recently introduced in the context of quantum cryptography, is called 'pseudoentanglement'. I will present our recent results on the dynamical generation and propagation of pseudoentanglement in many-body systems, and draw a connection to the fascinating mathematics of shuffling cards. I will close by speculating on the possible significance of these ideas for the foundations of quantum physics.

Reference: Xiaozhou Feng and MI, arXiv:2403.09619