Strong and weak thermalization of infinite non-integrable quantum systems

When a non-integrable system evolves out of equilibrium for a long time, local observables are expected to attain stationary expectation values, independent of the details of the initial state. However, intriguing experimental results with ultracold gases have shown no thermalization in non-integrable settings, triggering an intense theoretical effort to decide the question. Here we show that the phenomenology of thermalization in a quantum system is much richer than its classical counterpart. Using a new numerical technique, we identify two distinct thermalization regimes, strong and weak, occurring for different initial states. Strong thermalization, intrinsically quantum, happens when instantaneous local expectation values converge to the thermal ones. Weak thermalization, well-known in classical systems, happens when local expectation values converge to the thermal ones only after time averaging. Remarkably, we find a third group of states showing no thermalization, neither strong nor weak, to the time scales one can reliably simulate.Comment: 12 pages, 21 figures, including additional materia

Indirect CP Violation in the B-System

We show that, contrary to the flavour mixing amplitude q/p, both Re(epsilon) and Im(epsilon) are observable quantities, where epsilon is the phase- convention-independent CP mixing. We consider semileptonic B_d decays from a CP tag and build appropriate time-dependent asymmetries to separate out Re(epsilon) and Im(epsilon). "Indirect" CP violation would have in Im(epsilon)/(1+|epsilon|^2) its most prominent manifestation in the B-system, with expected values in the standard model ranging from -0.37 to -0.18. This quantity is controlled by a new observable phase: the relative one between the CP-violating and CP-conserving parts of the effective hamiltonian. For time-integrated rates we point out a (Delta Gamma)--> (Sigma Gamma) transmutation which operates in the perturbative CP mixing.Comment: 7 pages, No figure

Thermal evolution of the Schwinger model with Matrix Product Operators

We demonstrate the suitability of tensor network techniques for describing the thermal evolution of lattice gauge theories. As a benchmark case, we have studied the temperature dependence of the chiral condensate in the Schwinger model, using matrix product operators to approximate the thermal equilibrium states for finite system sizes with non-zero lattice spacings. We show how these techniques allow for reliable extrapolations in bond dimension, step width, system size and lattice spacing, and for a systematic estimation and control of all error sources involved in the calculation. The reached values of the lattice spacing are small enough to capture the most challenging region of high temperatures and the final results are consistent with the analytical prediction by Sachs and Wipf over a broad temperature range.Comment: 6 pages, 11 figure

Variational study of U(1) and SU(2) lattice gauge theories with Gaussian states in 1+1 dimensions

We introduce a method to investigate the static and dynamic properties of both Abelian and non-Abelian lattice gauge models in 1+1 dimensions. Specifically, we identify a set of transformations that disentangle different degrees of freedom, and apply a simple Gaussian variational ansatz to the resulting Hamiltonian. To demonstrate the suitability of the method, we analyze both static and dynamic aspects of string breaking for the U(1) and SU(2) gauge models. We benchmark our results against tensor network simulations and observe excellent agreement, although the number of variational parameters in the Gaussian ansatz is much smaller.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures. Added references and corrected typo

Gaussian states for the variational study of (1+1)-dimensional lattice gauge models

We introduce a variational ansatz based on Gaussian states for (1+1)-dimensional lattice gauge models. To this end we identify a set of unitary transformations which decouple the gauge degrees of freedom from the matter fields. Using our ansatz, we study static aspects as well as real-time dynamics of string breaking in two (1+1)-dimensional theories, namely QED and two-color QCD. We show that our ansatz captures the relevant features and is in excellent agreement with data from numerical calculations with tensor networks.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, proceedings of the 36th Annual International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, 22-28 July, 2018 Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, US

Simulation of many-qubit quantum computation with matrix product states

Matrix product states provide a natural entanglement basis to represent a quantum register and operate quantum gates on it. This scheme can be materialized to simulate a quantum adiabatic algorithm solving hard instances of a NP-Complete problem. Errors inherent to truncations of the exact action of interacting gates are controlled by the size of the matrices in the representation. The property of finding the right solution for an instance and the expected value of the energy are found to be remarkably robust against these errors. As a symbolic example, we simulate the algorithm solving a 100-qubit hard instance, that is, finding the correct product state out of ~ 10^30 possibilities. Accumulated statistics for up to 60 qubits point at a slow growth of the average minimum time to solve hard instances with highly-truncated simulations of adiabatic quantum evolution.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, final versio

Matrix Product States for dynamical simulation of infinite chains

We propose a new method for computing the ground state properties and the time evolution of infinite chains based on a transverse contraction of the tensor network. The method does not require finite size extrapolation and avoids explicit truncation of the bond dimension along the evolution. By folding the network in the time direction prior to contraction, time dependent expectation values and dynamic correlation functions can be computed after much longer evolution time than with any previous method. Moreover, the algorithm we propose can be used for the study of some non-invariant infinite chains, including impurity models.Comment: 4 pages, 7 EPS figures, extra references and figure; accepted versio

Phase structure of the (1+1)-dimensional massive Thirring model from matrix product states

Employing matrix product states as an ansatz, we study the non-thermal phase structure of the (1+1)-dimensional massive Thirring model in the sector of vanishing total fermion number with staggered regularization. In this paper, details of the implementation for this project are described. To depict the phase diagram of the model, we examine the entanglement entropy, the fermion bilinear condensate and two types of correlation functions. Our investigation shows the existence of two phases, with one of them being critical and the other gapped. An interesting feature of the phase structure is that the theory with non-zero fermion mass can be conformal. We also find clear numerical evidence that these phases are separated by a transition of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless type. Results presented in this paper establish the possibility of using the matrix product states for probing this type of phase transition in quantum field theories. They can provide information for further exploration of scaling behaviour, and serve as an important ingredient for controlling the continuum extrapolation of the model.Comment: 31 pages, 18 figures; minor changes to the text, typos corrected, references added; version published in Physical Review

Quantum walk with a time-dependent coin

We introduce quantum walks with a time-dependent coin, and show how they include, as a particular case, the generalized quantum walk recently studied by Wojcik [Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 180601 (2004)] which exhibits interesting dynamical localization and quasiperiodic dynamics. Our proposal allows for a much easier implementation of this particularly rich dynamics than the original one. Moreover, it allows for an additional control on the walk, which can be used to compensate for phases appearing due to external interactions. To illustrate its feasibility, we discuss an example using an optical cavity. We also derive an approximated solution in the continuous limit (long-wavelength approximation) which provides physical insight about the process