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arXiv:0810.0580 · Physical Review A

Entanglement renormalization, scale invariance, and quantum criticality

Robert N. C. Pfeifer, Glen Evenbly, Guifré Vidal

Published Apr 6, 2009• 158 citations
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Abstract

The use of entanglement renormalization in the presence of scale invariance is investigated. We explain how to compute an accurate approximation of the critical ground state of a lattice model and how to evaluate local observables, correlators, and critical exponents. Our results unveil a precise connection between the multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz and conformal field theory (CFT). Given a critical Hamiltonian on the lattice, this connection can be exploited to extract most of the conformal data of the CFT that describes the model in the continuum limit.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.79.040301

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The use of entanglement renormalization in the presence of scale invariance is investigated. We explain how to compute an accurate approximation of the critical ground state of a lattice model and how to evaluate local observables, correlators, and critical exponents. Our results unveil a precise connection between the multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz and conformal field theory (CFT). Given a critical Hamiltonian on the lattice, this connection can be exploited to extract most of the conformal data of the CFT that describes the model in the continuum limit.
The multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) can be used, in its scale invariant version, to describe the ground state of a lattice system at a quantum-critical point. From the scale invariant MERA one can determine the local scaling operators of the model. Here we show that, in the presence of a global symmetry G\mathcal{G}G, it is also possible to determine a class of nonlocal scaling operators. Each operator consists, for a given group element g∊Gg∊\mathcal{G}g∊G, of a semi-infinite string ${\ensuremath{\Gamma}}_{g}^{\ensuremath{\vartriangleleft}}$ with a local operator $\ensuremath{\varphi}$ attached to its open end. In the case of the quantum Ising model, G=Z2\mathcal{G}={\mathbb{Z}}_{2}G=Z2​, they correspond to the disorder operator $\ensuremath{\mu}$, the fermionic operators $\ensuremath{\psi}$ and $\overline{\ensuremath{\psi}}$, and all their descendants. Together with the local scaling operators identity I\mathbb{I}I, spin $\ensuremath{\sigma}$, and energy ϵϵϵ, the fermionic and disorder scaling operators $\ensuremath{\psi}$, $\overline{\ensuremath{\psi}}$, and $\ensuremath{\mu}$ are the complete list of primary fields of the Ising CFT. Therefore the scale invariant MERA allows us to characterize all the conformal towers of this CFT.
The multi-scale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) provides a natural description of the ground state of a quantum critical Hamiltonian on the lattice. From an optimized MERA, one can extract the scaling dimensions of the underlying conformal field theory. However, extracting conformal data from the ascending superoperator derived from MERA seems to have a limited range of accuracy, even after increasing the bond dimension. Here, we propose an alternative ansatz based on an increasing number of disentangling layers. This leads to generalized versions of MERA that improve the extraction of scaling dimensions, as tested in the Gaussian MERA setting for the critical Ising model.
We propose the use of entanglement renormalization techniques to study boundary critical phenomena on a lattice system. The multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA), in its scale invariant version, offers a very compact approximation to quantum critical ground states. Here we show that, by adding a boundary to the MERA, an accurate approximation to the ground state of a semi-infinite critical chain with an open boundary is obtained, from which one can extract boundary scaling operators and their scaling dimensions. As in Wilson's renormalization-group formulation of the Kondo problem, our construction produces, as a side result, an effective chain displaying explicit separation of energy scales. We present benchmark results for the quantum Ising and quantum XX models with free and fixed boundary conditions.
We show how to compute the critical exponents of one-dimensional quantum critical systems in the thermodynamic limit. The method is based on an iterative scheme applied to the multiscale entanglement renormalization Ansatz for the ground-state wave function. We test this scheme to compute the critical exponents of the Ising and XXZXXZXXZ model for which we can compare the method with the exact values. The agreement is at worst within few percent of the exact results already for moderate dimensions of the tensor indices.
We establish a precise connection between discrete wavelet transforms and entanglement renormalization, a real-space renormalization group transformation for quantum systems on the lattice, in the context of free particle systems. Specifically, we employ Daubechies wavelets to build approximations to the ground state of the critical Ising model, then demonstrate that these states correspond to instances of the multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA), producing the first known analytic MERA for critical systems.