Modular commutator as a robust topological invariant and approximate Markovianity

The modular commutator provides a bulk, local, single-wave-function probe of the chiral central charge $c_-$ for gapped ground states. Its invariance under deformations was previously established under a local quantum Markov condition---namely, the conditional mutual information $I(A:C|B)$ is zero for all tripartitions of a disk into three consecutive strips A, B, and C \cite{Modular-commutator-Gapped}. However, the local quantum Markov condition also forces the probe to vanish, leaving open whether modular commutator remains robust in physically relevant states where the Markov property holds only approximately. In this paper, we resolve this tension for finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces: the approximate local quantum Markov property implies the change of the modular commutator under topology-preserving deformations vanishes asymptotically. We next prove trace-norm continuity of the modular commutator. Combining deformation invariance with trace-norm continuity, we establish that the modular commutator remains asymptotically invariant within gapped quantum phases connected by quasi-local unitary paths that preserve the approximate local quantum Markov condition. Conversely, by analyzing finite-time dynamics generated by modular Hamiltonians, we derive a quantitative lower bound on the conditional mutual information required for a non-zero modular commutator: $I(A:C|B)$ across such strip tripartitions cannot decay faster than exponentially with the width of B given that the state satisfies entanglement area law, extending the exact no-go theorem of \cite{strict-J-2024} to a quantitative finite bound . Finally, we demonstrate that those conclusions apply equally to the Hall conductance estimator \cite{FanSahayVishwanath2023}.

Source: arXiv:2609.09019v1 - http://arxiv.org/abs/2609.09019v1 PDF: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.09019v1 Original Link: http://arxiv.org/abs/2609.09019v1