No Arabic abstract
Continuous unitary transformations are a powerful tool to extract valuable information out of quantum many-body Hamiltonians, in which the so-called flow equation transforms the Hamiltonian to a diagonal or block-diagonal form in second quantization. Yet, one of their main challenges is how to approximate the infinitely-many coupled differential equations that are produced throughout this flow. Here we show that tensor networks offer a natural and non-perturbative truncation scheme in terms of entanglement. The corresponding scheme is called entanglement-CUT or eCUT. It can be used to extract the low-energy physics of quantum many-body Hamiltonians, including quasiparticle energy gaps. We provide the general idea behind eCUT and explain its implementation for finite 1d systems using the formalism of matrix product operators. We also present proof-of-principle results for the spin-1/2 1d quantum Ising model and the 3-state quantum Potts model in a transverse field. Entanglement-CUTs can also be generalized to higher dimensions and to the thermodynamic limit.
Unitary transformations are an essential tool for the theoretical understanding of many systems by mapping them to simpler effective models. A systematically controlled variant to perform such a mapping is a perturbative continuous unitary transformation (pCUT) among others. So far, this approach required an equidistant unperturbed spectrum. Here, we pursue two goals: First, we extend its applicability to non-equidistant spectra with the particular focus on an efficient derivation of the differential flow equations, which define the enhanced perturbative continuous unitary transformation (epCUT). Second, we show that the numerical integration of the flow equations yields a robust scheme to extract data from the epCUT. The method is illustrated by the perturbation of the harmonic oscillator with a quartic term and of the two-leg spin ladders in the strong-rung-coupling limit for uniform and alternating rung couplings. The latter case provides an example of perturbation around a non-equidistant spectrum.
Effects of truncation in self-similar continuous unitary transformations (S-CUT) are estimated rigorously. We find a formal description via an inhomogeneous flow equation. In this way, we are able to quantify truncation errors within the framework of the S-CUT and obtain rigorous error bounds for the ground state energy and the highest excited level. These bounds can be lowered exploiting symmetries of the Hamiltonian. We illustrate our approach with results for a toy model of two interacting hard-core bosons and the dimerized S=1/2 Heisenberg chain.
The hole-doped antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 two-leg ladder is an important model system for the high-$T_c$ superconductors based on cuprates. Using the technique of self-similar continuous unitary transformations we derive effective Hamiltonians for the charge motion in these ladders. The key advantage of this technique is that it provides effective models explicitly in the thermodynamic limit. A real space restriction of the generator of the transformation allows us to explore the experimentally relevant parameter space. From the effective Hamiltonians we calculate the dispersions for single holes. Further calculations will enable the calculation of the interaction of two holes so that a handle of Cooper pair formation is within reach.
We define matrix product states in the continuum limit, without any reference to an underlying lattice parameter. This allows to extend the density matrix renormalization group and variational matrix product state formalism to quantum field theories and continuum models in 1 spatial dimension. We illustrate our procedure with the Lieb-Liniger model.
A generic method to investigate many-body continuous-variable systems is pedagogically presented. It is based on the notion of matrix product states (so-called MPS) and the algorithms thereof. The method is quite versatile and can be applied to a wide variety of situations. As a first test, we show how it provides reliable results in the computation of fundamental properties of a chain of quantum harmonic oscillators achieving off-critical and critical relative errors of the order of 10^(-8) and 10^(-4) respectively. Next, we use it to study the ground state properties of the quantum rotor model in one spatial dimension, a model that can be mapped to the Mott insulator limit of the 1-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model. At the quantum critical point, the central charge associated to the underlying conformal field theory can be computed with good accuracy by measuring the finite-size corrections of the ground state energy. Examples of MPS-computations both in the finite-size regime and in the thermodynamic limit are given. The precision of our results are found to be comparable to those previously encountered in the MPS studies of, for instance, quantum spin chains. Finally, we present a spin-off application: an iterative technique to efficiently get numerical solutions of partial differential equations of many variables. We illustrate this technique by solving Poisson-like equations with precisions of the order of 10^(-7).