These are lecture notes from the 44th IFF Spring School "Quantum Information Processing" in Juelich, discussing applications of entanglement theory in condensed matter. The focus of the notes is on tensor network states, in particular Matrix Product States (MPS) and Projected Entangled Pair States (PEPS), which provide an efficient description of many-body states based on their entanglement structure; both numerical and analytical aspects of tensor networks are being covered. The notes close with a brief introduction to quantum complexity, which allows to assess the limitations to our ability to simulate quantum many-body systems.
These are lecture notes from the 44th IFF Spring School "Quantum Information Processing" in Juelich, discussing applications of entanglement theory in condensed matter. The focus of the notes is on tensor network states, in particular Matrix Product States (MPS) and Projected Entangled Pair States (PEPS), which provide an efficient description of many-body states based on their entanglement structure; both numerical and analytical aspects of tensor networks are being covered. The notes close with a brief introduction to quantum complexity, which allows to assess the limitations to our ability to simulate quantum many-body systems.
These notes provide an introduction to tensor-network methods in quantum many-body physics, with an emphasis on matrix-product states (MPS). They develop the basic tensor-network language, including graphical notation, virtual indices, bond dimensions, gauge freedom, canonical forms, QR and singular-value decompositions, and the role of entanglement in controlling the efficiency of the representation. The main MPS algorithms are then introduced, including contractions, correlation functions, matrix-product operators, DMRG, and time-evolution methods. The notes also briefly discuss projected entangled-pair states (PEPS) as a higher-dimensional generalization of MPS, together with the basic ideas behind approximate PEPS contraction. Finally, tensor-network representations of mixed states, quantum channels, and Lindblad dynamics are presented, with applications to thermal states and open quantum systems. The presentation is accompanied by short Julia code examples based on ITensor, ITensorMPS, and TensorMixedStates. These notes were written for the 9th Les Houches Summer School on Computational Physics: Open Quantum Systems, held in June 2026.
This thesis is devoted to the study of quantum many-body systems. This investigation is performed in the framework of Matrix Product States (MPS) and their generalization to higher dimensions, Projected Entangled Pair States (PEPS). In the first part of the work, we discuss the mathematical properties of such tensor network states in depth. In the first chapters we deal with one-dimensional systems, for which we use the connections between MPS and completely positive maps to prove several new results, such as the quantum version of the Wielandt's inequality or the construction of locally invariant states under a symmetry group. Chapters 5-7 are dedicated to higher-dimensional systems, for which we provide the conditions to construct invariant PEPS. The second part of the thesis is dedicated to applications in condensed matter. In chapter 8 we provide several methods of constructing quasi-solvable Hamiltonians with two-body interactions, while in chapter 9 we show that these tensor network states can be used as a laboratory for theoretical condensed matter in, for instance, the characterization of the string-order, the generalization of the Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorem, the demonstration of new theorems relating entanglement to magnetisation or to long-range interactions, etc.
The curse of dimensionality associated with the Hilbert space of spin systems provides a significant obstruction to the study of condensed matter systems. Tensor networks have proven an important tool in attempting to overcome this difficulty in both the numerical and analytic regimes. These notes form the basis for a seven lecture course, introducing the basics of a range of common tensor networks and algorithms. In particular, we cover: introductory tensor network notation, applications to quantum information, basic properties of matrix product states, a classification of quantum phases using tensor networks, algorithms for finding matrix product states, basic properties of projected entangled pair states, and multiscale entanglement renormalisation ansatz states. The lectures are intended to be generally accessible, although the relevance of many of the examples may be lost on students without a background in many-body physics/quantum information. For each lecture, several problems are given, with worked solutions in an ancillary file.
Tensor Networks are a tool from quantum information theory to describe many-body
quantum systems. It has been shown that states arising from Tensor Networks in 1D (Matrix
Product States - MPS) accurately describe ground states of local, gapped Hamiltonians.
The same project for higher dimensional systems is currently the subject of great efforts.
However, quantum many-body systems in dimension 2 or greater can exhibit much richer
behaviour than their one-dimensional counterparts. One of the hallmarks of this is the
scarcely understood notion of topological order. It has been shown recently, that Projected
Entangled-Pair States (PEPS - Tensor Networks in 2D) can describe chiral topological
states, that lie in the ground state manifold of a certain class of gapless Hamiltonians. In
this work, we try to perturb the Hamiltonian into a gapped chiral phase. We will then
study, whether this gapped, chiral phase can be described in terms of PEPS or how the
PEPS-construction has to be modified to accommodate for this kind of behaviour.
This chapter is to introduce some basic definitions and concepts of TN Tensor network (TN) . We will show that the TN can be used to represent quantum many-body states, where we explain MPS Matrix product state (MPS) in 1D and PEPS Projected entangled pair state (PEPS) in 2D systems, as well as the generalizations to thermal states and operators. The quantum entanglement properties of the TN states including the area law of entanglement entropy will also be discussed. Finally, we will present several special TNs that can be exactly contracted, and demonstrate the difficulty of contracting TNs in general cases.