No Arabic abstract
Many physically interesting models show a quantum phase transition when a single parameter is varied through a critical point, where the ground state and the first excited state become degenerate. When this parameter appears as a coupling constant, these models can be understood as straight-line interpolations between different Hamiltonians $H_{rm I}$ and $H_{rm F}$. For finite-size realizations however, there will usually be a finite energy gap between ground and first excited state. By slowly changing the coupling constant through the point with the minimum energy gap one thereby has an adiabatic algorithm that prepares the ground state of $H_{rm F}$ from the ground state of $H_{rm I}$. The adiabatic theorem implies that in order to obtain a good preparation fidelity the runtime $tau$ should scale with the inverse energy gap and thereby also with the system size. In addition, for open quantum systems not only non-adiabatic but also thermal excitations are likely to occur. It is shown that -- using only local Hamiltonians -- for the 1d quantum Ising model and the cluster model in a transverse field the conventional straight line path can be replaced by a series of straight-line interpolations, along which the fundamental energy gap is always greater than a constant independent on the system size. The results are of interest for adiabatic quantum computation since strong similarities between adiabatic quantum algorithms and quantum phase transitions exist.
Motivated by the quantum adiabatic algorithm (QAA), we consider the scaling of the Hamiltonian gap at quantum first order transitions, generally expected to be exponentially small in the size of the system. However, we show that a quantum antiferromagnetic Ising chain in a staggered field can exhibit a first order transition with only an algebraically small gap. In addition, we construct a simple classical translationally invariant one-dimensional Hamiltonian containing nearest-neighbour interactions only, which exhibits an exponential gap at a thermodynamic quantum first-order transition of essentially topological origin. This establishes that (i) the QAA can be successful even across first order transitions but also that (ii) it can fail on exceedingly simple problems readily solved by inspection, or by classical annealing.
State preparation is a process encoding the classical data into the quantum systems. Based on quantum phase estimation, we propose the specific quantum circuits for a deterministic state preparation algorithm and a probabilistic state preparation algorithm. To discuss the gate complexity in these algorithms, we decompose the diagonal unitary operators included in the phase estimation algorithms into the basic gates. Thus, we associate the state preparation problem with the decomposition problem of the diagonal unitary operators. We analyse the fidelities in the two algorithms and discuss the success probability in the probabilistic algorithm. In this case, we explain that the efficient decomposition of the corresponding diagonal unitary operators is the sufficient condition for state preparation problems.
Several previous works have investigated the circumstances under which quantum adiabatic optimization algorithms can tunnel out of local energy minima that trap simulated annealing or other classical local search algorithms. Here we investigate the even more basic question of whether adiabatic optimization algorithms always succeed in polynomial time for trivial optimization problems in which there are no local energy minima other than the global minimum. Surprisingly, we find a counterexample in which the potential is a single basin on a graph, but the eigenvalue gap is exponentially small as a function of the number of vertices. In this counterexample, the ground state wavefunction consists of two lobes separated by a region of exponentially small amplitude. Conversely, we prove if the ground state wavefunction is single-peaked then the eigenvalue gap scales at worst as one over the square of the number of vertices.
A unified description of i) classical phase transitions and their remnants in finite systems and ii) quantum phase transitions is presented. The ensuing discussion relies on the interplay between, on the one hand, the thermodynamic concepts of temperature and specific heat and on the other, the quantal ones of coupling strengths in the Hamiltonian. Our considerations are illustrated in an exactly solvable model of Plastino and Moszkowski [Il Nuovo Cimento {bf 47}, 470 (1978)].
In this article we provide a review of geometrical methods employed in the analysis of quantum phase transitions and non-equilibrium dissipative phase transitions. After a pedagogical introduction to geometric phases and geometric information in the characterisation of quantum phase transitions, we describe recent developments of geometrical approaches based on mixed-state generalisation of the Berry-phase, i.e. the Uhlmann geometric phase, for the investigation of non-equilibrium steady-state quantum phase transitions (NESS-QPTs ). Equilibrium phase transitions fall invariably into two markedly non-overlapping categories: classical phase transitions and quantum phase transitions, whereas in NESS-QPTs this distinction may fade off. The approach described in this review, among other things, can quantitatively assess the quantum character of such critical phenomena. This framework is applied to a paradigmatic class of lattice Fermion systems with local reservoirs, characterised by Gaussian non-equilibrium steady states. The relations between the behaviour of the geometric phase curvature, the divergence of the correlation length, the character of the criticality and the gap - either Hamiltonian or dissipative - are reviewed.