Efficient method for quantum impurity problems out of equilibrium

Abstract

We introduce an efficient method to simulate dynamics of an interacting quantum impurity coupled to non-interacting fermionic reservoirs. Viewing the impurity as an open quantum system, we describe the reservoirs by their Feynman-Vernon influence functionals (IF). The IF are represented as matrix-product states in the temporal domain, which enables an efficient computation of dynamics for arbitrary interactions. We apply our method to study quantum quenches and transport in an Anderson impurity model, including highly non-equilibrium setups, and find favorable performance compared to state-of-the-art methods. The computational resources required for an accurate computation of dynamics scale polynomially with evolution time, indicating that a broad class of out-of-equilibrium quantum impurity problems are efficiently solvable. This approach will provide new insights into dynamical properties of mesoscopic devices and correlated materials.