We apply algorithms based on Lieb-Robinson bounds to simulate time-dependent and thermal quantities in quantum systems. For time-dependent systems, we modify a previous mapping to quantum circuits to significantly reduce the computer resources required. This modification is based on a principle of ``observing'' the system outside the light cone. We apply this method to study spin relaxation in systems started out of equilibrium with initial conditions that give rise to a very rapid entanglement growth. We also show that it is possible to approximate time evolution under a local Hamiltonian by a quantum circuit whose light cone naturally matches the Lieb-Robinson velocity. Asymptotically, these modified methods allow a doubling of the system size that one can obtain as compared to a direct simulation. We then consider a different problem of thermal properties of disordered spin chains and use quantum belief propagation to average over different configurations. We test this algorithm on one-dimensional systems with mixed ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic bonds, where we can compare to quantum Monte Carlo, and then we apply it to the study of disordered, frustrated spin systems.
We apply algorithms based on Lieb-Robinson bounds to simulate time-dependent and thermal quantities in quantum systems. For time-dependent systems, we modify a previous mapping to quantum circuits to significantly reduce the computer resources required. This modification is based on a principle of ``observing'' the system outside the light cone. We apply this method to study spin relaxation in systems started out of equilibrium with initial conditions that give rise to a very rapid entanglement growth. We also show that it is possible to approximate time evolution under a local Hamiltonian by a quantum circuit whose light cone naturally matches the Lieb-Robinson velocity. Asymptotically, these modified methods allow a doubling of the system size that one can obtain as compared to a direct simulation. We then consider a different problem of thermal properties of disordered spin chains and use quantum belief propagation to average over different configurations. We test this algorithm on one-dimensional systems with mixed ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic bonds, where we can compare to quantum Monte Carlo, and then we apply it to the study of disordered, frustrated spin systems.
The Lieb–Robinson bound implies that the unitary time evolution of an operator can be restricted to an effective light cone for any Hamiltonian with short-range interactions. Here we present a very efficient renormalization group algorithm based on this light cone structure to study the time evolution of prepared initial states in the thermodynamic limit in one-dimensional quantum systems. The algorithm does not require translational invariance and allows for an easy implementation of local conservation laws. We use the algorithm to investigate the relaxation dynamics of double occupancies in fermionic Hubbard models as well as a possible thermalization. For the integrable Hubbard model, we find a pure power-law decay of the number of doubly occupied sites towards the value in the long-time limit, while the decay becomes exponential when adding a nearest-neighbor interaction. In accordance with the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, the long-time limit is reasonably well described by a thermal average. We point out, however, that such a description naturally requires the use of negative temperatures. Finally, we study a doublon impurity in a Néel background and find that the excess charge and spin spread at different velocities, providing an example of spin–charge separation in a highly excited state.
The Lieb–Robinson bound implies that the unitary time evolution of an operator can be restricted to an effective light cone for any Hamiltonian with short-range interactions. Here we present a very efficient renormalization group algorithm based on this light cone structure to study the time evolution of prepared initial states in the thermodynamic limit in one-dimensional quantum systems. The algorithm does not require translational invariance and allows for an easy implementation of local conservation laws. We use the algorithm to investigate the relaxation dynamics of double occupancies in fermionic Hubbard models as well as a possible thermalization. For the integrable Hubbard model, we find a pure power-law decay of the number of doubly occupied sites towards the value in the long-time limit, while the decay becomes exponential when adding a nearest-neighbor interaction. In accordance with the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, the long-time limit is reasonably well described by a thermal average. We point out, however, that such a description naturally requires the use of negative temperatures. Finally, we study a doublon impurity in a Néel background and find that the excess charge and spin spread at different velocities, providing an example of spin–charge separation in a highly excited state.
Effective light cones, characterized by Lieb-Robinson bounds, emerge in nonrelativistic local quantum systems. Here, we present several analytical results derived from logarithmic light cones (LLCs). Possible origins of LLCs include the one-dimensional (1D) disordered XXZ model and a phenomenological model of many-body localization (MBL). In the LLC regime, we prove that, for arbitrary spatial dimensions and any initial pure state, entanglement growth is upper bounded by logarithmic time with an additional subleading double-logarithmic correction---arising from a real asymptotic solution of the Lambert W function---valid up to the asymptotic time limit. In the context of the 1D disordered XXZ model, this result resolves the ambiguity in distinguishing between logarithmic and power-law fits of entanglement growth in numerical studies; we also propose a falsifiable phenomenological functional form for the entanglement growth that agrees with existing numerical results. We show that information scrambling is logarithmically slow in the LLC regime. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the LLC supports long-lived quantum memories---quantum codes with macroscopic code distance and lifetimes that scale exponentially with system size---under unitary time evolution. Our analytical results provide benchmarks for future numerical studies of the MBL regime at large timescales.
The speed limit of information propagation is one of the most fundamental features in non-equilibrium physics. The region of information propagation by finite-time dynamics is approximately restricted inside the effective light cone that is formulated by the Lieb-Robinson bound. To date, extensive studies have been conducted to identify the shape of effective light cones in most experimentally relevant many-body systems. However, the Lieb-Robinson bound in the interacting boson systems, one of the most ubiquitous quantum systems in nature, has remained a critical open problem for a long time. This study reveals a tight effective light cone to limit the information propagation in interacting bosons, where the shape of the effective light cone depends on the spatial dimension. To achieve it, we prove that the speed for bosons to clump together is finite, which in turn leads to the error guarantee of the boson number truncation at each site. Furthermore, we applied the method to provide a provably efficient algorithm for simulating the interacting boson systems. The results of this study settle the notoriously challenging problem and provide the foundation for elucidating the complexity of many-body boson systems.
Memory effects in many-body quantum systems interacting with an environment significantly impact their behavior. Nevertheless, much of our understanding of many-body open quantum systems is based on models within the Born-Markov approximation where these effects are neglected. In this paper, we consider a general class of spatially local open quantum lattice models with a non-Markovian environment that is approximated as Gaussian. Our main result is a set of Lieb-Robinson bounds for such models. For models where the environment has independent local baths, we show that the Lieb-Robinson velocity is controlled by one-norm of the memory kernel within the evolution time-interval, yielding a linear light cone whenever the memory kernel has a bounded one-norm. For models where excitations can propagate through the environment, we prove a polynomial light cone that captures bath-mediated acceleration of information spreading. In both of these cases, we show that the derived Lieb-Robinson bounds are tight by also constructing lattice models saturating these bounds. Finally, we consider the problem of approximating a non-Markovian model by a larger Markovian model, which contains the system spins together with only a finite number of bosonic environment modes. We establish that as a consequence of our Lieb-Robinson bounds, the number of environment modes {per system site} needed to accurately capture local observables is independent of the size of the system.
The propagation of information in nonrelativistic quantum systems obeys a speed limit known as a Lieb-Robinson bound.We derive a new Lieb-Robinson bound for systems with interactions that decay with distance r as a power law, 1=r α .The bound implies an effective light cone tighter than all previous bounds.Our approach is based on a technique for approximating the time evolution of a system, which was first introduced as part of a quantum simulation algorithm by Haah et al., FOCS'18.To bound the error of the approximation, we use a known Lieb-Robinson bound that is weaker than the bound we establish.This result brings the analysis full circle, suggesting a deep connection between Lieb-Robinson bounds and digital quantum simulation.In addition to the new Lieb-Robinson bound, our analysis also gives an error bound for the Haah et al. quantum simulation algorithm when used to simulate power-law decaying interactions.In particular, we show that the gate count of the algorithm scales with the system size better than existing algorithms when α > 3D (where D is the number of dimensions).