Hubbard-Stratonovich Transformation Research Articles

RG flows and fixed points of O(N)r models

By means of ϵ and large N expansions, we study generalizations of the O(N) model where the fundamental fields are tensors of rank r rather than vectors, and where the global symmetry (up to additional discrete symmetries and quotients) is O(N)r, focusing on the cases r ≤ 5. Owing to the distinct ways of performing index contractions, these theories contain multiple quartic operators, which mix under the RG flow. At all large N fixed points, melonic operators are absent and the leading Feynman diagrams are bubble diagrams, so that all perturbative fixed points can be readily matched to full large N solutions obtained from Hubbard-Stratonovich transformations. The family of fixed points we uncover extend to arbitrary higher values of r, and as their number grows superexponentially with r, these theories offer a vast generalization of the critical O(N) model.We also study sextic O(N)r theories, whose large N limits are obscured by the fact that the dominant Feynman diagrams are not restricted to melonic or bubble diagrams. For these theories the large N dynamics differ qualitatively across different values of r, and we demonstrate that the RG flows possess a numerous and diverse set of perturbative fixed points beginning at rank four.

Dipole symmetry breaking and fractonic Nambu-Goldstone mode

We introduce a family of quantum field theories for fields carrying monopole and dipole charges. In contrast to previous realizations, fields have quadratic two-derivative kinetic terms. The dipole symmetry algebra is realized in a discretized internal space and connected to the physical space through a background gauge field. We study spontaneous symmetry breaking of dipole symmetry in 1+1 dimensions in a large-NN limit. The trivial classical vacuum is lifted by quantum corrections into a vacuum which breaks dipole symmetry while preserving monopole charge. By means of a Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation, heat-kernel and large-NN techniques, we compute the effective action for the low-energy modes. We encounter a fractonic immobile Nambu-Goldstone mode whose dispersion characteristics avoid Coleman-Hohenberg-Mermin-Wagner theorem independently of the large-NN limit.

Generalized Gaussian integrals with application to the Hubbard–Stratonovich transformation

We analyze a variety of Gaussian integrals with the aim of revisiting the derivation of the Hubbard–Stratonovich transformation as given in standard graduate-level textbooks and provide an overview of its applications. We pinpoint problematic steps in the usual discussions and propose careful derivations of the Hubbard–Stratonovich identity pertinent to a variety of situations relevant to statistical physics and quantum field theory. These derivations are based on direct use of either a resolution identity or a series expansion. A few homework problems for students are suggested.

Flexible class of exact Hubbard-Stratonovich transformations.

We consider a class of Hubbard-Stratonovich transformations suitable for treating Hubbard interactions in the context of quantum Monte Carlo simulations. A tunable parameter p allows us to continuously vary from a discrete Ising auxiliary field (p=∞) to a compact auxiliary field that couples to electrons sinusoidally (p=0). In tests on the single-band square and triangular Hubbard models, we find that the severity of the sign problem decreases systematically with increasing p. Selecting p finite, however, enables continuous sampling methods such as the Langevin or Hamiltonian Monte Carlo methods. We explore the tradeoffs between various simulation methods through numerical benchmarks.

Instanton gas approach to the Hubbard model

In this paper, we consider a path integral formulation of the Hubbard model based on a Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation that couples the auxiliary field to the local electronic density. This decoupling is known to have a saddle-point structure that shows a remarkable regularity: The field configuration at each saddle point can be understood in terms of a set of elementary field configurations localized in space and imaginary time which we coin instantons. The interaction between instantons is short ranged. Here, we formulate a classical partition function for the instanton gas that has predictive power. For a given set of physical parameters, we can predict the distribution of instantons and show that the instanton number is sharply defined in the thermodynamic limit, thereby defining a unique dominant saddle point. Decoupling in the charge channel conserves SU(2) spin symmetry for each field configurations. Hence, the instanton approach provides an SU(2) spin-symmetric approximation to the Hubbard model. It fails, however, to capture the magnetic transition inherent to the Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice despite being able to describe local moment formation. In fact, the instanton itself corresponds to local moment formation and concomitant short-ranged antiferromagnetic correlations. This aspect is also seen in the single particle spectral function that shows clear signs of the upper and lower Hubbard bands. Our instanton approach bears remarkable similarities to local dynamical approaches, such as dynamical mean-field theory, in the sense that it has the unique property of allowing for local moment formation without breaking the SU(2) spin symmetry. In contrast to local approaches, it captures short-ranged magnetic fluctuations. Furthermore, it also offers possibilities for systematic improvements by taking into account fluctuations around the dominant saddle point. Finally, we show that the saddle point structure depends upon the choice of lattice geometry. For the square lattice at half filling, the saddle-point structure reflects the itinerant to localized nature of the magnetism as a function of the coupling strength. The implications of our results for Lefschetz thimble approaches to alleviate the sign problem are also discussed.

Mitigating the fermion sign problem by automatic differentiation

As an intrinsically unbiased method, the quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) method is of unique importance in simulating interacting quantum systems. Although the QMC method often suffers from the notorious sign problem, the sign problem of quantum models may be mitigated by finding better choices of the simulation scheme. However, a general framework for identifying optimal QMC schemes has been lacking. Here, we propose a general framework using automatic differentiation to automatically search for the best QMC scheme within a given ansatz of the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation, which we call ``automatic differentiable sign optimization'' (ADSO). We apply the ADSO framework to the honeycomb lattice Hubbard model with Rashba spin-orbit coupling and demonstrate that ADSO is remarkably effective in mitigating and even solving its sign problem. Specifically, ADSO finds a sign-free point in the model which was previously thought to be sign-problematic. For the sign-free model discovered by ADSO, its ground state is shown by sign-free QMC simulations to possess spiral magnetic ordering; we also obtained the critical exponents characterizing the magnetic quantum phase transition.

Infinite variance in Monte Carlo sampling of lattice field theories

In Monte Carlo calculations of expectation values in lattice quantum field theories, the stochastic variance of the sampling procedure that is used defines the precision of the calculation for a fixed number of samples. If the variance of an estimator of a particular quantity is formally infinite, or in practice very large compared to the square of the mean, then that quantity can not be reliably estimated using the given sampling procedure. There are multiple scenarios in which this occurs, including in Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics, and a particularly simple example is given by the Gross-Neveu model where Monte Carlo calculations involve the introduction of auxiliary bosonic variables through a Hubbard-Stratonovich (HS) transformation. Here, it is shown that the variances of HS estimators for classes of operators involving fermion fields are divergent in this model and an even simpler zero-dimensional analogue. To correctly estimate these observables, two alternative sampling methods are proposed and numerically investigated.

Two-dimensional massive integrable models on a torus

The finite-volume thermodynamics of a massive integrable QFT is described in terms of a grand canonical ensemble of loops immersed in a torus and interacting through scattering factors associated with their intersections. The path integral of the loops is evaluated explicitly after decoupling the pairwise interactions by a Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation. The HS fields are holomorphic fields depending on the rapidity and can be expanded in elementary oscillators. The torus partition function is expressed as certain expectation value in the Fock space of these oscillators. In the limit where one of the periods of the torus becomes asymptotically large, the effective field theory becomes mean field type. The mean field describes the infinite-volume thermodynamics which is solved by the Thermodynamical Bethe Ansatz.

Manipulating Goldstone modes via superradiant light in a bosonic lattice gas inside a cavity

We study the low-energy excitations of a bosonic lattice gas with cavity-mediated interactions. By performing two successive Hubbard-Stratonovich transformations, we derive an effective field theory to study the strongly-coupling regime. Taking into account the quantum fluctuation, we report the unusual effect of the superradiant cavity light induced density imbalance, which has been shown to have a negligible effect on the single particle excitation in the previous studies. Instead, we show that such negligible fluctuation of density imbalance dramatically changes the behavior of the low-energy excitation and results in a free switching between two types of Goldstone modes in its single particle excitation, i.e., type I and type II with odd and even power energy-momentum dispersion, respectively. Our proposal would open a new horizon for manipulating Goldstone modes from bridging the cavity light and strongly interacting quantum matters.

Efficient world-line-based quantum Monte Carlo method without Hubbard–Stratonovich transformation

By precisely writing down the matrix element of the local Boltzmann operator ({mathrm{e}}^{-tau h}, where h is the Hermitian conjugate pairs of off-diagonal operators), we have proposed a new path integral formulation for quantum field theory and developed a corresponding Monte Carlo algorithm. With the current formula, the Hubbard–Stratonovich transformation is not necessary, accordingly the determinant calculation is not needed, which can improve the computational efficiency. The results show that, the simulation time has the square-law scaling with system sizes, which is comparable with the usual first-principles calculations. The current formula also improves the accuracy of the Suzuki–Trotter decomposition. As an example, we have studied the one-dimensional half-filled Hubbard model at finite temperature. The obtained results are in excellent agreement with the known solutions. The new formula and Monte Carlo algorithm could be applied to various studies in future.

Gutzwiller wave function on a quantum computer using a discrete Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation

We propose a quantum-classical hybrid scheme for implementing the nonunitary Gutzwiller factor using a discrete Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation, which allows us to express the Gutzwiller factor as a linear combination of unitary operators involving only single-qubit rotations, at the cost of the sum over the auxiliary fields. To perform the sum over the auxiliary fields, we introduce two approaches that have complementary features. The first approach employs a linear-combination-of-unitaries circuit, which enables one to probabilistically prepare the Gutzwiller wave function on a quantum computer, while the second approach uses importance sampling to estimate observables stochastically, similar to a quantum Monte Carlo method in classical computation. The proposed scheme is demonstrated with numerical simulations for the half-filled Fermi-Hubbard model. Furthermore, we perform quantum simulations using a real quantum device, demonstrating that the proposed scheme can reproduce the exact ground-state energy of the two-site Fermi-Hubbard model within error bars.

Higher Order Auxiliary Field Quantum Monte Carlo Methods

The auxiliary field quantum Monte Carlo (AFQMC) method has been a workhorse in the field of strongly correlated electrons for a long time and has found its most recent implementation in the ALF package (alf.physik.uni-wuerzburg.de). The utilization of the Trotter decomposition to decouple the interaction from the non-interacting Hamiltonian makes this method inherently second order in terms of the imaginary time slice. We show that due to the use of the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation (HST) a semigroup structure on the time evolution is imposed that necessitates the introduction of a new family of complex-hermitian splitting methods for the purpose of reaching higher order. We will give examples of these new methods and study their efficiency, as well as perform comparisons with other established second and higher order methods in the realm of the AFQMC method.

Quantum dissipation with nonlinear environment couplings: Stochastic fields dressed dissipaton equation of motion approach

Accurate and efficient simulation on quantum dissipation with nonlinear environment couplings remains a challenging task nowadays. In this work, we propose to incorporate the stochastic fields, which resolve just the nonlinear environment coupling terms, into the dissipaton-equation-of-motion (DEOM) construction. The stochastic fields are introduced via the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation. After the transformation, the resulted stochastic-fields-dressed (SFD) total Hamiltonian contains only linear environment coupling terms. On the basis of that, SFD-DEOM can then be constructed. The resultant SFD-DEOM, together with the ensemble average over the stochastic fields, constitutes an exact and nonperturbative approach to quantum dissipation under nonlinear environment couplings. It is also of relatively high efficiency and stability due to the fact that only nonlinear environment coupling terms are dealt with stochastic fields, while linear couplings are still treated as the usual DEOM. Numerical performance and demonstrations are presented with a two-state model system.

Quantum Monte Carlo method on asymptotic Lefschetz thimbles for quantum spin systems: An application to the Kitaev model in a magnetic field

The quantum Monte Carlo method on asymptotic Lefschetz thimbles is a numerical algorithm devised specifically for alleviation of the sign problem appearing in the simulations of quantum many-body systems. In this method, the sign problem is alleviated by shifting the integration domain for the auxiliary fields, appearing for example in the conventional determinant quantum Monte Carlo method, from real space to an appropriate manifold in complex space. Here we extend this method to quantum spin models with generic two-spin interactions, by using the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation to decouple the exchange interactions and the Popov-Fedotov transformation to map the quantum spins to complex fermions. As a demonstration, we apply the method to the Kitaev model in a magnetic field whose ground state is predicted to deliver a topological quantum spin liquid with non-Abelian anyonic excitations. To illustrate how the sign problem is alleviated in this method, we visualize the asymptotic Lefschetz thimbles in complex space, together with the saddle points and the zeros of the fermion determinant. We benchmark our method in the low-temperature region in a magnetic field and show that the sign of the action is recovered considerably and unbiased numerical results are obtained with sufficient precision.

Balance and Imbalance p-wave superfluid in BCS-BEC crossover regime at finite temperature: Feynman Path Integral approach

The effect of population imbalance in p-wave superfluids in the BCS-BEC crossover regime at finite temperatures is studied through the path integral formalism. Using the Hubbard–Stratonovich transformation, the partition function of the system is cast from quaternary to quadratic fields and the thermodynamic potential in the Saddle-point approximation in presence of fluctuation is derived. Similarly, the probability of condensation, the normal and superfluid densities are calculated and we find that in the weak coupling regime, the population imbalance is not favorable to superfluid density. Also, it is shown that in the presence of the population imbalance, the condensate fraction exhibits a phase transition and that from a certain value of the temperature the system deviates robustly against the population imbalance for p-wave pairing and that when one approaches the strong coupling, the atoms are strongly correlated and the configuration of the system is forbidden for a certain value of the coupling and tends to merge into evidence that the system is robust against population imbalance as one moves away from the strong coupling regime. Finally, we observed that the chemical potential increases with the population imbalance as we get closer to the strong coupling regime.

Applying the Hubbard-Stratonovich Transformation to Solve Scheduling Problems Under Inequality Constraints With Quantum Annealing

Quantum annealing is a global optimization algorithm that uses the quantum tunneling effect to speed-up the search for an optimal solution. Its current hardware implementation relies on D-Wave’s Quantum Processing Units, which are limited in terms of number of qubits and architecture while being restricted to solving quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) problems. Consequently, previous applications of quantum annealing to real-life use cases have focused on problems that are either native QUBO or close to native QUBO. By contrast, in this paper we propose to tackle inequality constraints and non-quadratic terms. We demonstrate how to handle them with a realistic use case-a bus charging scheduling problem. First, we reformulate the original integer programming problem into a QUBO with the penalty method and directly solve it on a D-Wave machine. In a second approach, we dualize the problem by performing the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation. The dual problem is solved indirectly by combining quantum annealing and adaptive classical gradient-descent optimizer. Whereas the penalty method is severely limited by the connectivity of the realistic device, we show experimentally that the indirect approach is able to solve problems of a larger size, offering thus a better scaling. Hence, the implementation of the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation carried out in this paper on a scheduling use case suggests that this approach could be investigated further and applied to a variety of real-life integer programming problems under multiple constraints to lower the cost of mapping to QUBO, a key step towards the near-term practical application of quantum computing.

Functional-integral approach to Gaussian fluctuations in Eliashberg theory

The Eliashberg theory of superconductivity is based on a dynamical electron-phonon interaction as opposed to a static interaction present in BCS theory. The standard derivation of Eliashberg theory is based on an equation of motion approach, which incorporates certain approximations such as Migdal's approximation for the pairing vertex. In this paper we provide a functional-integral-based derivation of Eliashberg theory and we also consider its Gaussian-fluctuation extension. The functional approach enables a self-consistent method of computing the mean-field equations, which arise as saddle-point conditions, and here we observe that the conventional Eliashberg self energy and pairing function both appear as Hubbard-Stratonovich transformations. An important consequence of this fact is that it provides a systematic derivation of the Cooper and density-channel interactions in the Gaussian fluctuation response. We also investigate the strong-coupling fluctuation diamagnetic susceptibility near the critical temperature.

Recognition capabilities of a Hopfield model with auxiliary hidden neurons.

We study the recognition capabilities of the Hopfield model with auxiliary hidden layers, which emerge naturally upon a Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation. We show that the recognition capabilities of such a model at zero temperature outperform those of the original Hopfield model, due to a substantial increase of the storage capacity and the lack of a naturally defined basin of attraction. The modified model does not fall abruptly into the regime of complete confusion when memory load exceeds a sharp threshold. This latter circumstance, together with an increase of the storage capacity, renders such a modified Hopfield model a promising candidate for further research, with possible diverse applications.

Strong-coupling diagrammatic Monte Carlo technique for correlated fermions and frustrated spins

We describe a controllable and unbiased strong-coupling diagrammatic Monte Carlo technique that is applicable to a wide range of fermionic systems and spin models. Unlike previous strong coupling methods that generally rely on the Grassmannian Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation, our construction is based on Wick's theorem and a recursive procedure to group contractions into effective connected vertices that are non-perturbative in all local physics and can be calculated exactly. The resulting expansion is described by simple diagrammatic rules that make it suitable for systematic treatment via stochastic sampling. Benchmarks against numerical linked cluster expansion display excellent agreement.

Theoretical study of I-V characteristics in a coupled long Josephson junctions based on magnesium diboride superconductor

In the present work, the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics in a coupled long Josephson junction based on magnesium diboride are studied by establishing a system of equations of phase differences of various inter- and intra-band channels starting from the microscopic Hamiltonian of the junction system and simplifying it through the phenomenological procedures such as action, partition function, Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation (bosonization), Grassmann integral, saddle-point approximation, Goldstone mode, phase dependent effective Lagrangian and, finally, Euler-Lagrange equation of motion. The system of equations are solved using finite difference approximation for which the solution of unperturbed sine-Gordon equation is taken as the initial condition. Neumann boundary condition is maintained at both the ends so that the fluxon is capable of reflecting from the end of the system. The phase dependent current is calculated for different tunnel voltage and averaged out over space and time. The current-voltage characteristics are almost linear at low voltage and non-linear at higher voltage which indicates that the more complicated physical phenomena at this situation may occur. At some region of the characteristics, there exist a negative resistance which means that the junction system can be used in specific electronic devices such as oscillators, switches, memories etc. The non-linearity is also sensitive to the layer as well as to the junction thicknesses. Non-linearity occurs for lower voltage and for higher junction and layer thicknesses.