Improved Thermal Area Law and Quasilinear Time Algorithm for Quantum Gibbs States

One of the most fundamental problems in quantum many-body physics is the characterization of correlations among thermal states. Of particular relevance is the thermal area law, which justifies the tensor network approximations to thermal states with a bond dimension growing polynomially with the sys...

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Main Authors: Tomotaka Kuwahara, Álvaro M. Alhambra, Anurag Anshu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society 2021-03-01
Series:Physical Review X
Online Access:http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.11.011047
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author Tomotaka Kuwahara
Álvaro M. Alhambra
Anurag Anshu
author_facet Tomotaka Kuwahara
Álvaro M. Alhambra
Anurag Anshu
author_sort Tomotaka Kuwahara
collection DOAJ
description One of the most fundamental problems in quantum many-body physics is the characterization of correlations among thermal states. Of particular relevance is the thermal area law, which justifies the tensor network approximations to thermal states with a bond dimension growing polynomially with the system size. In the regime of sufficiently low temperatures, which is crucially important for practical applications, the existing techniques do not yield optimal bounds. Here, we propose a new thermal area law that holds for generic many-body systems on lattices. We improve the temperature dependence from the original O(β) to O(β^{2/3}) up to a logarithmic factor, thereby suggesting subballistic propagation of entanglement by imaginary-time evolution. This qualitatively differs from the real-time evolution, which usually induces linear growth of entanglement. We also prove analogous bounds for the Rényi entanglement of purification and the entanglement of formation. Our analysis is based on a polynomial approximation to the exponential function which provides a relationship between the imaginary-time evolution and random walks. Moreover, for one-dimensional (1D) systems with n spins, we prove that the Gibbs state is well approximated by a matrix product operator with a sublinear bond dimension for β=o[log(n)]. This proof allows us to rigorously establish, for the first time, a quasilinear time classical algorithm for constructing a matrix product state representation of 1D quantum Gibbs states at arbitrary temperatures of β=o[log(n)]. Our new technical ingredient is a block decomposition of the Gibbs state that bears a resemblance to the decomposition of real-time evolution given by Haah et al. [Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE 59th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS) (IEEE, New York, 2018), pp. 350–360].
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spelling doaj.art-1b172ab7d3c645b98c3e968df9a25d992022-12-21T21:35:22ZengAmerican Physical SocietyPhysical Review X2160-33082021-03-0111101104710.1103/PhysRevX.11.011047Improved Thermal Area Law and Quasilinear Time Algorithm for Quantum Gibbs StatesTomotaka KuwaharaÁlvaro M. AlhambraAnurag AnshuOne of the most fundamental problems in quantum many-body physics is the characterization of correlations among thermal states. Of particular relevance is the thermal area law, which justifies the tensor network approximations to thermal states with a bond dimension growing polynomially with the system size. In the regime of sufficiently low temperatures, which is crucially important for practical applications, the existing techniques do not yield optimal bounds. Here, we propose a new thermal area law that holds for generic many-body systems on lattices. We improve the temperature dependence from the original O(β) to O(β^{2/3}) up to a logarithmic factor, thereby suggesting subballistic propagation of entanglement by imaginary-time evolution. This qualitatively differs from the real-time evolution, which usually induces linear growth of entanglement. We also prove analogous bounds for the Rényi entanglement of purification and the entanglement of formation. Our analysis is based on a polynomial approximation to the exponential function which provides a relationship between the imaginary-time evolution and random walks. Moreover, for one-dimensional (1D) systems with n spins, we prove that the Gibbs state is well approximated by a matrix product operator with a sublinear bond dimension for β=o[log(n)]. This proof allows us to rigorously establish, for the first time, a quasilinear time classical algorithm for constructing a matrix product state representation of 1D quantum Gibbs states at arbitrary temperatures of β=o[log(n)]. Our new technical ingredient is a block decomposition of the Gibbs state that bears a resemblance to the decomposition of real-time evolution given by Haah et al. [Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE 59th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS) (IEEE, New York, 2018), pp. 350–360].http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.11.011047
spellingShingle Tomotaka Kuwahara
Álvaro M. Alhambra
Anurag Anshu
Improved Thermal Area Law and Quasilinear Time Algorithm for Quantum Gibbs States
Physical Review X
title Improved Thermal Area Law and Quasilinear Time Algorithm for Quantum Gibbs States
title_full Improved Thermal Area Law and Quasilinear Time Algorithm for Quantum Gibbs States
title_fullStr Improved Thermal Area Law and Quasilinear Time Algorithm for Quantum Gibbs States
title_full_unstemmed Improved Thermal Area Law and Quasilinear Time Algorithm for Quantum Gibbs States
title_short Improved Thermal Area Law and Quasilinear Time Algorithm for Quantum Gibbs States
title_sort improved thermal area law and quasilinear time algorithm for quantum gibbs states
url http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.11.011047
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