Quantum Hamiltonian Complexity

Constraint satisfaction problems are a central pillar of modern computational complexity theory. This survey provides an introduction to the rapidly growing field of Quantum Hamiltonian Complexity, which includes the study of quantum constraint satisfaction problems. Over the past decade and a half, this field has witnessed fundamental breakthroughs, ranging from the establishment of a "Quantum Cook-Levin Theorem" to deep insights into the structure of 1D low-temperature quantum systems via so-called area laws. Our aim here is to provide a computer science-oriented introduction to the subject in order to help bridge the language barrier between computer scientists and physicists in the field. As such, we include the following in this survey: (1) The motivations and history of the field, (2) a glossary of condensed matter physics terms explained in computer-science friendly language, (3) overviews of central ideas from condensed matter physics, such as indistinguishable particles, mean field theory, tensor networks, and area laws, and (4) brief expositions of selected computer science-based results in the area. For example, as part of the latter, we provide a novel information theoretic presentation of Bravyi's polynomial time algorithm for Quantum 2-SAT.Comment: v4: published version, 127 pages, introduction expanded to include brief introduction to quantum information, brief list of some recent developments added, minor changes throughou

Classification of the phases of 1D spin chains with commuting Hamiltonians

We consider the class of spin Hamiltonians on a 1D chain with periodic boundary conditions that are (i) translational invariant, (ii) commuting and (iii) scale invariant, where by the latter we mean that the ground state degeneracy is independent of the system size. We correspond a directed graph to a Hamiltonian of this form and show that the structure of its ground space can be read from the cycles of the graph. We show that the ground state degeneracy is the only parameter that distinguishes the phases of these Hamiltonians. Our main tool in this paper is the idea of Bravyi and Vyalyi (2005) in using the representation theory of finite dimensional C^*-algebras to study commuting Hamiltonians.Comment: 8 pages, improved readability, added exampl

Graph states as ground states of many-body spin-1/2 Hamiltonians

We consider the problem whether graph states can be ground states of local interaction Hamiltonians. For Hamiltonians acting on n qubits that involve at most two-body interactions, we show that no n-qubit graph state can be the exact, non-degenerate ground state. We determine for any graph state the minimal d such that it is the non-degenerate ground state of a d-body interaction Hamiltonian, while we show for d'-body Hamiltonians H with d'<d that the resulting ground state can only be close to the graph state at the cost of H having a small energy gap relative to the total energy. When allowing for ancilla particles, we show how to utilize a gadget construction introduced in the context of the k-local Hamiltonian problem, to obtain n-qubit graph states as non-degenerate (quasi-)ground states of a two-body Hamiltonian acting on n'>n spins.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur