Probing Postmeasurement Entanglement without Postselection

We study the problem of observing quantum collective phenomena emerging from large numbers of measurements. These phenomena are difficult to observe in conventional experiments because, in order to distinguish the effects of measurement from dephasing, it is necessary to postselect on sets of measurement outcomes with Born probabilities that are exponentially small in the number of measurements performed. An unconventional approach, which avoids this exponential “postselection problem”, is to construct cross-correlations between experimental data and the results of simulations on classical computers. However, these cross-correlations generally have no definite relation to physical quantities. We first show how to incorporate classical shadows into this framework, thereby allowing for the construction of quantum information-theoretic cross-correlations. We then identify cross-correlations that both upper and lower bound the measurement-averaged von Neumann entanglement entropy, as well as cross-correlations that lower bound the measurement-averaged purity and entanglement negativity. These bounds show that experiments can be performed to constrain postmeasurement entanglement without the need for postselection. To illustrate our technique, we consider how it could be used to observe the measurement-induced entanglement transition in Haar-random quantum circuits. We use exact numerical calculations as proxies for quantum simulations and, to highlight the fundamental limitations of classical memory, we construct cross-correlations with tensor-network calculations at finite bond dimension. Our results reveal a signature of measurement-induced criticality that can be observed using a quantum simulator in polynomial time and with polynomial classical memory.