Entanglement embezzlement is a counterintuitive quantum effect: entanglement can be extracted from a catalyst state while leaving the catalyst almost unchanged. Matias Karjula, Teemu Ojanen, Kim Pöyhönen, Tapio Ala-Nissila and Moein Ivaki show that generic local chaotic quantum evolution, starting from a simple product state, produces intermediate states with the multiscale entanglement structure needed for universal embezzlement.

These structures appear well before the system reaches maximum entropy, where thermalisation flattens them out, and they come with nonlocal 'magic', or nonstabilizerness, that diverges with system size. Without any fine-tuning, chaotic dynamics thus creates a universal family of catalytic reservoirs. The work links Teemu Ojanen's Theory of Quantum Matter group at Tampere University with Aalto University.

The preprint has not yet been peer reviewed.

Figure: Karjula et al., arXiv:2609.18691 (2026), CC BY 4.0