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arXiv:0804.3976 · New Journal of Physics

Matrix product operator representations

B Pirvu, V. Murg, J. I. Cirac, Frank Verstraete

Published Feb 26, 2010• 373 citations
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Abstract

We show how to construct relevant families of matrix product operators (MPOs) in one and higher dimensions. These form the building blocks for the numerical simulation methods based on matrix product states and projected entangled pair states. In particular, we construct translationally invariant MPOs suitable for time evolution, and show how such descriptions are possible for Hamiltonians with long-range interactions. We show how these tools can be exploited for constructing new algorithms for simulating quantum spin systems.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/12/2/025012

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We show how to construct relevant families of matrix product operators (MPOs) in one and higher dimensions. These form the building blocks for the numerical simulation methods based on matrix product states and projected entangled pair states. In particular, we construct translationally invariant MPOs suitable for time evolution, and show how such descriptions are possible for Hamiltonians with long-range interactions. We show how these tools can be exploited for constructing new algorithms for simulating quantum spin systems.
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Matrix product states and matrix product operators (MPOs) are one-dimensional tensor networks that underlie the modern density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) algorithm. The use of MPOs accounts for the high level of generality and wide range of applicability of DMRG. However, current algorithms for two-dimensional (2D) tensor network states, known as projected entangled-pair states, rarely employ the associated 2D tensor network operators, projected entangled-pair operators (PEPOs), due to their computational cost and conceptual complexity. To lower these two barriers, we describe how to reformulate a PEPO into a set of tensor network operators that resemble MPOs by considering the different sets of local operators that are generated from sequential bipartitions of the 2D system. The expectation value of a PEPO can then be evaluated on the fly using only the action of MPOs and generalized MPOs at each step of the approximate contraction of the 2D tensor network. This technique allows for the simpler construction and more efficient energy evaluation of 2D Hamiltonians that contain finite-range interactions, and provides an improved strategy to encode long-range interactions that is orders of magnitude more accurate and efficient than existing schemes.
We develop a block-encoding compiler that treats matrix product operators as compressed, virtual-path linear combination of unitaries programs. The compiler constructs conditional PREP and local SELECT stages directly from a parent matrix product operator, establishing tensor networks as structured quantum intermediate representations that can be efficiently compiled to block-encoded circuits. We apply the construction to real-time evolution in the Heisenberg chain and two perturbed Heisenberg-family models. Across the regimes studied, the compressed, approximately unitary propagator MPOs retain mild bond dimension and LCU normalization. Relative to an LCU that explicitly lists the O(NK)\mathcal{O}(N^K)O(NK) Pauli-product branches of an order-K truncated Taylor polynomial, our virtual-transition implementation replaces combinatorial branch enumeration by a circuit complexity scaling as O(αMPONχ2)\mathcal{O}(α_{\rm MPO}Nχ^2)O(αMPO​Nχ2), approaching O(Nχ2)\mathcal{O}(Nχ^2)O(Nχ2) when αMPOα_{\rm MPO}αMPO​ remains mild. We numerically characterize how truncation order, bond-dimension budget, and system size affect approximation error, normalization, and compiler cost. These results demonstrate how classically compressed tensor-network representations can serve as quantum compiler intermediate representations for block encoding and opens new avenues to accelerate quantum algorithms.