Quantum Lattice Systems Research Articles

Tensor Network Annealing Algorithm for Two-Dimensional Thermal States.

Tensor network methods have become a powerful class of tools to capture strongly correlated matter, but methods to capture the experimentally ubiquitous family of models at finite temperature beyond one spatial dimension are largely lacking. We introduce a tensor network algorithm able to simulate thermal states of two-dimensional quantum lattice systems in the thermodynamic limit. The method develops instances of projected entangled pair states and projected entangled pair operators for this purpose. It is the key feature of this algorithm to resemble the cooling down of the system from an infinite temperature state until it reaches the desired finite-temperature regime. As a benchmark, we study the finite-temperature phase transition of the Ising model on an infinite square lattice, for which we obtain remarkable agreement with the exact solution. We then turn to study the finite-temperature Bose-Hubbard model in the limits of two (hard-core) and three bosonic modes per site. Our technique can be used to support the experimental study of actual effectively two-dimensional materials in the laboratory, as well as to benchmark optical lattice quantum simulators with ultracold atoms.

Signatures of chaos and thermalization in the dynamics of many-body quantum systems

We extend the results of two of our papers [Phys. Rev. A 94, 041603R (2016) and Phys. Rev. B 97, 060303R (2018)] that touch upon the intimately connected topics of quantum chaos and thermalization. In the first, we argued that when the initial state of isolated lattice many-body quantum systems is chaotic, the power-law decay of the survival probability is caused by the bounds in the spectrum, and thus anticipates thermalization. In the current work, we provide stronger numerical support for the onset of these algebraic behaviors. In the second paper, we demonstrated that the correlation hole, which is a direct signature of quantum chaos revealed by the evolution of the survival probability at times beyond the power-law decay, appears also for other observables. In the present work, we investigate the correlation hole in the chaotic regime and in the vicinity of a many-body localized phase for the spin density imbalance, which is an observable studied experimentally.

Long-Range Order, “Tower” of States, and Symmetry Breaking in Lattice Quantum Systems

In a quantum many-body system where the Hamiltonian and the order operator do not commute, it often happens that the unique ground state of a finite system exhibits long-range order (LRO) but does not show spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB). Typical examples include antiferromagnetic quantum spin systems with Neel order, and lattice boson systems which exhibit Bose-Einstein condensation. By extending and improving previous results by Horsch and von der Linden and by Koma and Tasaki, we here develop a fully rigorous and almost complete theory about the relation between LRO and SSB in the ground state of a finite system with continuous symmetry. We show that a ground state with LRO but without SSB is inevitably accompanied by a series of energy eigenstates, known as the "tower" of states, which have extremely low excitation energies. More importantly, we also prove that one gets a physically realistic "ground state" by taking a superposition of these low energy excited states. The present paper is written in a self-contained manner, and does not require any knowledge about the previous works on the subject.

Quantum probe spectroscopy for cold atomic systems

We study a two-level impurity coupled locally to a quantum gas on an optical lattice. For state-dependent interactions between the impurity and the gas, we show that its evolution encodes information on the local excitation spectrum of the gas at the coupling site. Based on this, we design a nondestructive method to probe the system’s excitations in a broad range of energies by measuring the state of the probe using standard atom optics methods. We illustrate our findings with numerical simulations for quantum lattice systems, including realistic dephasing noise on the quantum probe, and discuss practical limits on the probe dephasing rate to fully resolve both regular and chaotic spectra.

The equilibration time scales of the quantum lattice model

Finding the equilibration time scale is an important open question in studying the equilibration of quantum systems. There are many kinds of systems that are unable to achieve equilibration, such as Anderson insulator, many-body localization systems and some integrable systems. For those systems that can reach equilibration, it was proved that there exists a general equilibration time scale. But these upper bounds are unrealistically long, and the lower bounds are also unrealistically short. How to get an accurate and general equilibration time scale is still unclear. In this paper, we study local equilibration time scales in quantum lattice systems. With the relation between equilibration and entanglement entropy, we define a new criterion for equilibration. This criterion is based on Renyi entropy, which is simpler for calculation. Moreover, the production of Renyi entropy is highly dependent on the spreading of information, and hence the tools developed in quantum information theory can help a lot. For the upper bound of equilibration time, we use the normal criterion of the time average ofthe fluctuation of the observation. This equilibration criterion is assessed with concrete observable operator, hence it is more accurate than the criterion of Renyi entropy. But this criterion is more complicated for calculation. With an appropriate assumption about the initial state, we present a new upper bound of equilibration time. Since the results are not constrained by the Hamiltonian of the system, this bound can be applied to various situations. If we are concerned with the local equilibration, we can limit the observation to a small region. If the whole system is big enough, the local observation would always find that the rest part is staying at the canonical ensemble, so that the local equilibration time will not increase with the size of whole system. When the local region is small enough, the upper bound of equilibration time can be much shorter. The local Renyi entropy has close relation to the propagation of information. The limitation of the speed of information propagation in a quantum lattice system can be given by the Lieb-Robinson bound, with which we evaluate the production rate of local 2-Renyi entropy. With these, we give a new lower bound of equilibration time for systems whose interactions are respectively short-range, exponentially-decaying and long-range. In earlier works, the lower bound of equilibration time is equal to the Lieb-Robinson time of the local system. In our rigorous proof, however, the lower bound is related to the strength of hopping, which also decides the Lieb-Robinson velocity. This means the equilibration time is related to the Lieb-Robinson time indeed. But the strictly equal relation may not hold. These new bounds are important to understanding the process of quantum equilibration.

Stability of gapped ground state phases of spins and fermions in one dimension

We investigate the persistence of spectral gaps of one-dimensional frustration free quantum lattice systems under weak perturbations and with open boundary conditions. Assuming that the interactions of the system satisfy a form of local topological quantum order, we prove explicit lower bounds on the ground state spectral gap and higher gaps for spin and fermion chains. By adapting previous methods using the spectral flow, we analyze the bulk and edge dependence of lower bounds on spectral gaps.

Geometrical frustration in nonlinear photonic lattices

Geometrical frustration in either classical or quantum lattice systems is a phenomenon in which the impossibility of satisfying simultaneously all constraints of the system Hamiltonian leads to complex structures with degeneracy of the ground state. We show that geometrical frustration can be observed in a simple setup consisting of classical light propagating along a regular array of evanescently coupled photonic nonlinear waveguides arranged in a honeycomb geometry. Here, geometrical frustration emerges as competition between the number of waveguides and the need to satisfy the stationary constraints of the system. The phenomenology that exhibits these photonic arrays mimics the behavior observed in graphene-related spin lattices. Our results show that two-dimensional arrays of coupled photonic waveguides can be used as a proxy to study geometry frustration in diverse lattice systems.

Revisiting numerical real-space renormalization group for quantum lattice systems

Although substantial progress has been achieved in solving quantum impurity problems, the numerical renormalization group (NRG) method generally performs poorly when applied to quantum lattice systems in a real-space blocking form. The approach was thought to be unpromising for most lattice systems owing to its flaw in dealing with the boundaries of the block. Here the discovery of intrinsic prescriptions to cure interblock interactions is proposed which is able to clear up the boundary obstacle in applying the NRG to quantum lattice systems. While the resulting RG transformation turns out to be strict in the thermodynamic limit, benchmark tests of the algorithm on a one-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet and a two-dimensional tight-binding model demonstrate its numerical efficiency in resolving low-energy spectra for finite lattice systems.

Statistical properties of eigenstate amplitudes in complex quantum systems.

We study the eigenstates of quantum systems with large Hilbert spaces, via their distribution of wave-function amplitudes in a real-space basis. For single-particle "quantum billiards," these real-space amplitudes are known to have Gaussian distribution for chaotic systems. In this work, we formulate and address the corresponding question for many-body lattice quantum systems. For integrable many-body systems, we examine the deviation from Gaussianity and provide evidence that the distribution generically tends toward power-law behavior in the limit of large sizes. We relate the deviation from Gaussianity to the entanglement content of many-body eigenstates. For integrable billiards, we find several cases where the distribution has power-law tails.

Lieb-Robinson bound at finite temperatures.

The Lieb-Robinson bound shows that the speed of propagating information in a nonrelativistic quantum lattice system is bounded by a finite velocity, which entails the clustering of correlations. In this paper, we extend the Lieb-Robinson bound to quantum systems at finite temperature by calculating the dynamical correlation function at nonzero temperature for systems whose interactions are, respectively, short range, exponentially decaying, and long range. We introduce a simple way of counting the clusters in a cluster expansion by using the combinatoric generating functions of graphs. Limitations and possible applications of the obtained bound are also discussed.

Unifying neural-network quantum states and correlator product states via tensor networks

Correlator product states (CPS) are a powerful and very broad class of states for quantum lattice systems whose (unnormalised) amplitudes in a fixed basis can be sampled exactly and efficiently. They work by gluing together states of overlapping clusters of sites on the lattice, called correlators. Recently Carleo and Troyer (2017 Science 355 602) introduced a new type sampleable ansatz called neural-network quantum states (NQS) that are inspired by the restricted Boltzmann model used in machine learning. By employing the formalism of tensor networks we show that NQS are a special form of CPS with novel properties. Diagramatically a number of simple observations become transparent. Namely, that NQS are CPS built from extensively sized GHZ-form correlators making them uniquely unbiased geometrically. The appearance of GHZ correlators also relates NQS to canonical polyadic decompositions of tensors. Another immediate implication of the NQS equivalence to CPS is that we are able to formulate exact NQS representations for a wide range of paradigmatic states, including superpositions of weighed-graph states, the Laughlin state, toric code states, and the resonating valence bond state. These examples reveal the potential of using higher dimensional hidden units and a second hidden layer in NQS. The major outlook of this study is the elevation of NQS to correlator operators allowing them to enhance conventional well-established variational Monte Carlo approaches for strongly correlated fermions.

Quantization of Conductance in Gapped Interacting Systems

We provide a short proof of the quantization of the Hall conductance for gapped interacting quantum lattice systems on the two-dimensional torus. This is not new and should be seen as an adaptation of the proof of Hastings and Michalakis (Commun Math Phys 334:433–471, 2015), simplified by making the stronger assumption that the Hamiltonian remains gapped when threading the torus with fluxes. We argue why this assumption is very plausible. The conductance is given by Berry’s curvature and our key auxiliary result is that the curvature is asymptotically constant across the torus of fluxes.

A simple tensor network algorithm for two-dimensional steady states

Understanding dissipation in 2D quantum many-body systems is an open challenge which has proven remarkably difficult. Here we show how numerical simulations for this problem are possible by means of a tensor network algorithm that approximates steady states of 2D quantum lattice dissipative systems in the thermodynamic limit. Our method is based on the intuition that strong dissipation kills quantum entanglement before it gets too large to handle. We test its validity by simulating a dissipative quantum Ising model, relevant for dissipative systems of interacting Rydberg atoms, and benchmark our simulations with a variational algorithm based on product and correlated states. Our results support the existence of a first order transition in this model, with no bistable region. We also simulate a dissipative spin 1/2 XYZ model, showing that there is no re-entrance of the ferromagnetic phase. Our method enables the computation of steady states in 2D quantum lattice systems.

Dynamical manifestations of quantum chaos: correlation hole and bulge

A main feature of a chaotic quantum system is a rigid spectrum where the levels do not cross. We discuss how the presence of level repulsion in lattice many-body quantum systems can be detected from the analysis of their time evolution instead of their energy spectra. This approach is advantageous to experiments that deal with dynamics, but have limited or no direct access to spectroscopy. Dynamical manifestations of avoided crossings occur at long times. They correspond to a drop, referred to as correlation hole, below the asymptotic value of the survival probability and to a bulge above the saturation point of the von Neumann entanglement entropy and the Shannon information entropy. By contrast, the evolution of these quantities at shorter times reflects the level of delocalization of the initial state, but not necessarily a rigid spectrum. The correlation hole is a general indicator of the integrable-chaos transition in disordered and clean models and as such can be used to detect the transition to the many-body localized phase in disordered interacting systems.This article is part of the themed issue 'Breakdown of ergodicity in quantum systems: from solids to synthetic matter'.

Dissipation-induced mobility and coherence in frustrated lattices

In quantum lattice systems with geometric frustration, particles cannot move coherently due to destructive interference between tunnelling processes. Here we show that purely local, Markovian dissipation can induce mobility and long-range first-order coherence in frustrated lattice systems that is entirely generated by incoherent processes. Interactions reduce the coherences and mobility but do not destroy them. These effects are observable in experimental implementations of driven-dissipative lattices with a flat band and non-uniform dissipation.

Work extraction in an isolated quantum lattice system: Grand canonical and generalized Gibbs ensemble predictions.

We study work extraction (defined as the difference between the initial and the final energy) in noninteracting and (effectively) weakly interacting isolated fermionic quantum lattice systems in one dimension, which undergo a sequence of quenches and equilibration. The systems are divided in two parts, which we identify as the subsystem of interest and the bath. We extract work by quenching the on-site potentials in the subsystem, letting the entire system equilibrate, and returning to the initial parameters in the subsystem using a quasistatic process (the bath is never acted upon). We select initial states that are direct products of thermal states of the subsystem and the bath, and consider equilibration to the generalized Gibbs ensemble (GGE, noninteracting case) and to the Gibbs ensemble (GE, weakly interacting case). We identify the class of quenches that, in the thermodynamic limit, results in GE and GGE entropies after the quench that are identical to the one in the initial state (quenches that do not produce entropy). Those quenches guarantee maximal work extraction when thermalization occurs. We show that the same remains true in the presence of integrable dynamics that results in equilibration to the GGE.

Fermionic topological quantum states as tensor networks

Tensor network states, and in particular projected entangled pair states, play an important role in the description of strongly correlated quantum lattice systems. They do not only serve as variational states in numerical simulation methods, but also provide a framework for classifying phases of quantum matter and capture notions of topological order in a stringent and rigorous language. The rapid development in this field for spin models and bosonic systems has not yet been mirrored by an analogous development for fermionic models. In this work, we introduce a framework of tensor networks having a fermionic component capable of capturing notions of topological order. At the heart of the formalism are axioms of fermionic matrix product operator injectivity, stable under concatenation. Building upon that, we formulate a Grassmann number tensor network ansatz for the ground state of fermionic twisted quantum double models. A specific focus is put on the paradigmatic example of the fermionic toric code. This work shows that the program of describing topologically ordered systems using tensor networks carries over to fermionic models.

Holographic encoding of universality in corner spectra

In numerical simulations of classical and quantum lattice systems, 2d corner transfer matrices (CTMs) and 3d corner tensors (CTs) are a useful tool to compute approximate contractions of infinite-size tensor networks. In this paper we show how the numerical CTMs and CTs can be used, {\it additionally\/}, to extract universal information from their spectra. We provide examples of this for classical and quantum systems, in 1d, 2d and 3d. Our results provide, in particular, practical evidence for a wide variety of models of the correspondence between $d$-dimensional quantum and $(d+1)$-dimensional classical spin systems. We show also how corner properties can be used to pinpoint quantum phase transitions, topological or not, without the need for observables. Moreover, for a chiral topological PEPS we show by examples that corner tensors can be used to extract the entanglement spectrum of half a system, with the expected symmetries of the $SU(2)_k$ Wess-Zumino-Witten model describing its gapless edge for $k=1,2$. We also review the theory behind the quantum-classical correspondence for spin systems, and provide a new numerical scheme for quantum state renormalization in 2d using CTs. Our results show that bulk information of a lattice system is encoded holographically in efficiently-computable properties of its corners.

Decay of Correlations in 2D Quantum Systems with Continuous Symmetry

We study a large class of models of two-dimensional quantum lattice systems with continuous symmetries, and we prove a general McBryan–Spencer–Koma–Tasaki theorem concerning algebraic decay of correlations. We present applications of our main result to the Heisenberg, Hubbard, and t-J models, and to certain models of random loops.

Thermalization and Return to Equilibrium on Finite Quantum Lattice Systems.

Thermal states are the bedrock of statistical physics. Nevertheless, when and how they actually arise in closed quantum systems is not fully understood. We consider this question for systems with local Hamiltonians on finite quantum lattices. In a first step, we show that states with exponentially decaying correlations equilibrate after a quantum quench. Then, we show that the equilibrium state is locally equivalent to a thermal state, provided that the free energy of the equilibrium state is sufficiently small and the thermal state has exponentially decaying correlations. As an application, we look at a related important question: When are thermal states stable against noise? In other words, if we locally disturb a closed quantum system in a thermal state, will it return to thermal equilibrium? We rigorously show that this occurs when the correlations in the thermal state are exponentially decaying. All our results come with finite-size bounds, which are crucial for the growing field of quantum thermodynamics and other physical applications.