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arXiv:1703.04137 · Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical

Z N symmetry breaking in projected entangled pair state models

Manuel Rispler, Kasper Duivenvoorden, Norbert Schuch

Published Jul 20, 2017• 1 citation
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Abstract

Abstract We consider projected entangled pair state (PEPS) models with a global Z N symmetry, which are constructed from Z N -symmetric tensors and are thus Z N -invariant wavefunctions, and study the occurence of long-range order and symmetry breaking in these systems. First, we show that long-range order in those models is accompanied by a degeneracy in the so-called transfer operator of the system. We subsequently use this degeneracy to determine the nature of the symmetry broken states, i.e. those stable under arbitrary perturbations, and provide a succinct characterization in terms of the fixed points of the transfer operator (i.e. the different boundary conditions) in the individual symmetry sectors. We verify our findings numerically through the study of a Z 3 -symmetric model, and show that the entanglement Hamiltonian derived from the symmetry broken states is quasi-local (unlike the one derived from the symmetric state), reinforcing the locality of the entanglement Hamiltonian for gapped phases.

DOI
10.1088/1751-8121/aa80f3

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Abstract We consider projected entangled pair state (PEPS) models with a global Z N symmetry, which are constructed from Z N -symmetric tensors and are thus Z N -invariant wavefunctions, and study the occurence of long-range order and symmetry breaking in these systems. First, we show that long-range order in those models is accompanied by a degeneracy in the so-called transfer operator of the system. We subsequently use this degeneracy to determine the nature of the symmetry broken states, i.e. those stable under arbitrary perturbations, and provide a succinct characterization in terms of the fixed points of the transfer operator (i.e. the different boundary conditions) in the individual symmetry sectors. We verify our findings numerically through the study of a Z 3 -symmetric model, and show that the entanglement Hamiltonian derived from the symmetry broken states is quasi-local (unlike the one derived from the symmetric state), reinforcing the locality of the entanglement Hamiltonian for gapped phases.
ZN{\mathbb Z}_NZN​ symmetry breaking in projected entangled pair state models
We consider Projected Entangled Pair State (PEPS) models with a global ZN\mathbb Z_NZN​ symmetry, which are constructed from ZN\mathbb Z_NZN​-symmetric tensors and are thus ZN\mathbb Z_NZN​-invariant wavefunctions, and study the occurence of long-range order and symmetry breaking in these systems. First, we show that long-range order in those models is accompanied by a degeneracy in the so-called transfer operator of the system. We subsequently use this degeneracy to determine the nature of the symmetry broken states, i.e., those stable under arbitrary perturbations, and provide a succinct characterization in terms of the fixed points of the transfer operator (i.e.\ the different boundary conditions) in the individual symmetry sectors. We verify our findings numerically through the study of a Z3\mathbb Z_3Z3​-symmetric model, and show that the entanglement Hamiltonian derived from the symmetry broken states is quasi-local (unlike the one derived from the symmetric state), reinforcing the locality of the entanglement Hamiltonian for gapped phases.
Projected entangled-pair states (PEPS) provide a framework for the construction of models where a single tensor gives rise to both Hamiltonian and ground state wave function on the same footing. A key problem is to characterize the behavior which emerges in the system in terms of the properties of the tensor, and thus of the Hamiltonian. In this paper, we consider PEPS models with Z2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​ on-site symmetry and study the occurrence of long-range order and spontaneous symmetry breaking. We show how long-range order is connected to a degeneracy in the spectrum of the PEPS transfer operator, and how the latter gives rise to spontaneous symmetry breaking under perturbations. We provide a succinct characterization of the symmetry-broken states in terms of the PEPS tensor, and find that using the symmetry-broken states we can derive a local entanglement Hamiltonian, thereby restoring locality of the entanglement Hamiltonian for all gapped phases.
In this thesis, we consider projected entangled pair state (PEPS) models as a framework for two-dimensional strongly-correlated quantum many body systems, where the global properties of the system are concisely encoded in one local tensor. While it was well known how to construct PEPS models with desired symmetries by manifestly encoding the symmetry in the local tensor, our goal in this work is to investigate whether this manifestly encoded symmetry can be spontaneously broken. By defining long-range order as a good criterion for symmetry breaking in a finite volume PEPS, we answer this question in the affirmative. A particularly attractive feature of PEPS models is that they have an exact holographic mapping, which is to say that the large system behavior is described by the ``PEPS boundary'', given by the fixed point(s) of the so called transfer operator. We investigate the implications of long-range order and prove that it leads to a particular symmetry breaking pattern in the fixed point space. We find this pattern by first proving that long-range order implies an asymptotic degeneracy in the transfer operator and then identifying the symmetry breaking mechanism as the one which, from all possible boundary (-matrix) configurations, selects the configurations that correspond to positive-semi-definite matrices, i.e. one-dimensional virtual quantum states. We prove that these correspond to boundary configurations that do not mix under arbitrary perturbations and are thus stable. We study the entanglement properties of these virtual quantum states and show that they can be described by local entanglement Hamiltonians, establishing that also in phases with symmetry breaking, gapped quantum phases have an associated local entanglement Hamiltonian.
Projected entangled pair states (PEPS) provide a natural ansatz for the ground states of gapped, local Hamiltonians in which global characteristics of a quantum state are encoded in properties of local tensors. We develop a framework to describe onsite symmetries, as occurring in systems exhibiting symmetry-protected topological (SPT) quantum order, in terms of virtual symmetries of the local tensors expressed as a set of matrix product operators (MPOs) labeled by distinct group elements. These MPOs describe the possibly anomalous symmetry of the edge theory, whose local degrees of freedom are concretely identified in a PEPS. A classification of SPT phases is obtained by studying the obstructions to continuously deforming one set of MPOs into another, recovering the results derived for fixed-point models [Chen et al., Phys. Rev. B 87, 155114 (2013)]. Our formalism accommodates perturbations away from fixed-point models, opening the possibility of studying phase transitions between different SPT phases. We also demonstrate that applying the recently developed quantum state gauging procedure to a SPT PEPS yields a PEPS with topological order determined by the initial symmetry MPOs. The MPO framework thus unifies the different approaches to classifying SPT phases, via fixed-point models, boundary anomalies, or gauging the symmetry, into the single problem of classifying inequivalent sets of matrix product operator symmetries that are defined purely in terms of a PEPS.
We study the structure of topological phases and their boundaries in the projected entangled-pair states (PEPS) formalism. We show how topological order in a system can be identified from the structure of the PEPS transfer operator and subsequently use these findings to analyze the structure of the boundary Hamiltonian, acting on the bond variables, which reflects the entanglement properties of the system. We find that in a topological phase, the boundary Hamiltonian consists of two parts: A universal nonlocal part which encodes the nature of the topological phase and a nonuniversal part which is local and inherits the symmetries of the topological model, which helps to infer the structure of the boundary Hamiltonian and thus possibly of the physical edge modes.
Abstract Projected entangled pair states (PEPS) are very useful in the description of strongly correlated systems, partly because they allow encoding symmetries, either global or local (gauge), naturally. In recent years, PEPS with local symmetries have increasingly been used in the study of non-perturbative regimes of lattice gauge theories, most prominently as a way to construct variational ansatz states depending only on a small number of parameters and yet capturing the relevant physical properties. For the case of one-dimensional PEPS (matrix product states—MPS) a bidirectional connection was established between the internal structure of the tensor network, i.e. the mathematical properties of the constituent tensors, and the symmetry. In higher dimensions this has only been done for global symmetries, where in the local (gauge) case it is known only how to construct gauge-invariant states, but not what the symmetry implies on the internal structure of the PEPS. In the present work we complete this missing piece and study the internal structure of PEPS with a gauge symmetry. The PEPS we consider consist of matter and gauge field tensors placed on the vertices and edges, respectively, of arbitrary graphs.