Exact results for fidelity susceptibility of the quantum Ising model: The interplay between parity, system size, and magnetic field

We derive an exact closed-form expression for fidelity susceptibility of even- and odd-sized quantum Ising chains in the transverse field. To this aim, we diagonalize the Ising Hamiltonian and study the gap between its positive and negative parity subspaces. We derive an exact closed-form expression for the gap and use it to identify the parity of the ground state. We point out misunderstanding in some of the former studies of fidelity susceptibility and discuss its consequences. Last but not least, we rigorously analyze the properties of the gap. For example, we derive analytical expressions showing its exponential dependence on the ratio between the system size and the correlation length.Comment: 11 pages, updated references, version accepted in JP

Breaking the entanglement barrier: Tensor network simulation of quantum transport

The recognition that large classes of quantum many-body systems have limited entanglement in the ground and low-lying excited states led to dramatic advances in their numerical simulation via so-called tensor networks. However, global dynamics elevates many particles into excited states, and can lead to macroscopic entanglement and the failure of tensor networks. Here, we show that for quantum transport -- one of the most important cases of this failure -- the fundamental issue is the canonical basis in which the scenario is cast: When particles flow through an interface, they scatter, generating a "bit" of entanglement between spatial regions with each event. The frequency basis naturally captures that -- in the long-time limit and in the absence of inelastic scattering -- particles tend to flow from a state with one frequency to a state of identical frequency. Recognizing this natural structure yields a striking -- potentially exponential in some cases -- increase in simulation efficiency, greatly extending the attainable spatial- and time-scales, and broadening the scope of tensor network simulation to hitherto inaccessible classes of non-equilibrium many-body problems.Comment: Published version; 6+9 pages; 4+4 figures; Added: an example of interacting reservoirs, further evidence on performance scaling, and extended discussion of the numerical detail

Multi-scale Entanglement Renormalization Ansatz in Two Dimensions: Quantum Ising Model

We propose a symmetric version of the multi-scale entanglement renormalization Ansatz (MERA) in two spatial dimensions (2D) and use this Ansatz to find an unknown ground state of a 2D quantum system. Results in the simple 2D quantum Ising model on the $8\times8$ square lattice are found to be very accurate even with the smallest non-trivial truncation parameter.Comment: version to appear in Phys. Rev. Letter

Symmetry breaking bias and the dynamics of a quantum phase transition

The Kibble-Zurek mechanism predicts the formation of topological defects and other excitations that quantify how much a quantum system driven across a quantum critical point fails to be adiabatic. We point out that, thanks to the divergent linear susceptibility at the critical point, even a tiny symmetry breaking bias can restore the adiabaticity. The minimal required bias scales like $\tau_Q^{-\beta\delta/(1+z\nu)}$, where $\beta,\delta,z,\nu$ are the critical exponents and $\tau_Q$ is a quench time. We test this prediction by DMRG simulations of the quantum Ising chain. It is directly applicable to the recent emulation of quantum phase transition dynamics in the Ising chain with ultracold Rydberg atoms.Comment: 5+1 pages, 5+1 figures; close to published versio

Anomalous behavior of the energy gap in the one-dimensional quantum XY model

We re-examine the well-studied one dimensional spin-1/2 $XY$ model to reveal its nontrivial energy spectrum, in particular the energy gap between the ground state and the first excited state. In the case of the isotropic $XY$ model -- the $XX$ model -- the gap behaves very irregularly as a function of the system size at a second order transition point. This is in stark contrast to the usual power-law decay of the gap and is reminiscent of the similar behavior at the first order phase transition in the infinite-range quantum $XY$ model. The gap also shows nontrivial oscillatory behavior for the phase transitions in the anisotropic model in the incommensurate phase. We observe a close relation between this anomalous behavior of the gap and the correlation functions. These results, those for the isotropic case in particular, are important from the viewpoint of quantum annealing where the efficiency of computation is strongly affected by the size dependence of the energy gap.Comment: 25 pages, 8 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1501.0292

Quantum fidelity in the thermodynamic limit

We study quantum fidelity, the overlap between two ground states of a many-body system, focusing on the thermodynamic regime. We show how drop of fidelity near a critical point encodes universal information about a quantum phase transition. Our general scaling results are illustrated in the quantum Ising chain for which a remarkably simple expression for fidelity is found.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, rearranged a bit to improve presentatio

Matrix product state renormalization

The truncation or compression of the spectrum of Schmidt values is inherent to the matrix product state (MPS) approximation of one-dimensional quantum ground states. We provide a renormalization group picture by interpreting this compression as an application of Wilson's numerical renormalization group along the imaginary time direction appearing in the path integral representation of the state. The location of the physical index is considered as an impurity in the transfer matrix and static MPS correlation functions are reinterpreted as dynamical impurity correlations. Coarse-graining the transfer matrix is performed using a hybrid variational ansatz based on matrix product operators, combining ideas of MPS and the multi-scale entanglement renormalization ansatz. Through numerical comparison with conventional MPS algorithms, we explicitly verify the impurity interpretation of MPS compression, as put forward by [V. Zauner et al., New J. Phys. 17, 053002 (2015)] for the transverse-field Ising model. Additionally, we motivate the conceptual usefulness of endowing MPS with an internal layered structure by studying restricted variational subspaces to describe elementary excitations on top of the ground state, which serves to elucidate a transparent renormalization group structure ingrained in MPS descriptions of ground states.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, published versio