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arXiv:1704.01943 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Matrix product representation of locality preserving unitaries

Mehmet Şahinoglu, Sujeet K. Shukla, Feng Bi, Xie Chen

Published Dec 17, 2018• 45 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Matrix product representation provides a useful formalism to study not only entangled states but also entangled operators in one dimension. In this paper, we focus on unitary transformations and show that matrix product operators that are unitary provide a necessary and sufficient representation of one-dimensional (1D) unitaries that preserve locality. That is, we show that matrix product operators that are unitary are guaranteed to preserve locality by mapping local operators to local operators, while at the same time all locality-preserving unitaries can be represented in a matrix product way. Moreover, we show that matrix product representation gives a straightforward way to extract the index defined by Gross, Nesme, Vogts, and Werner in [D. Gross et al., Commun. Math. Phys. 310, 419 (2012)] for classifying 1D locality-preserving unitaries. The key to our discussion is a set of ``fixed-point'' conditions which characterize the form of the matrix product unitary operators after blocking sites. Finally, we show that if the unitary condition is only required for certain system sizes, then matrix product formalism allows more possibilities. In particular, we give an example of a simple matrix product operator which is unitary only for odd system sizes, does not preserve locality, and carries a ``fractional'' index.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.98.245122

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Matrix product representation provides a useful formalism to study not only entangled states but also entangled operators in one dimension. In this paper, we focus on unitary transformations and show that matrix product operators that are unitary provide a necessary and sufficient representation of one-dimensional (1D) unitaries that preserve locality. That is, we show that matrix product operators that are unitary are guaranteed to preserve locality by mapping local operators to local operators, while at the same time all locality-preserving unitaries can be represented in a matrix product way. Moreover, we show that matrix product representation gives a straightforward way to extract the index defined by Gross, Nesme, Vogts, and Werner in [D. Gross et al., Commun. Math. Phys. 310, 419 (2012)] for classifying 1D locality-preserving unitaries. The key to our discussion is a set of fixed-point'' conditions which characterize the form of the matrix product unitary operators after blocking sites. Finally, we show that if the unitary condition is only required for certain system sizes, then matrix product formalism allows more possibilities. In particular, we give an example of a simple matrix product operator which is unitary only for odd system sizes, does not preserve locality, and carries a fractional'' index.
Matrix Product Unitaries (MPUs) have emerged as essential tools for representing locality-preserving 1D unitary operators, with direct applications to quantum cellular automata and quantum phases of matter. A key challenge in the study of MPUs is determining when a given local tensor generates an MPU, a task previously addressed through fixed-point conditions and canonical forms, which can be cumbersome to evaluate for an arbitrary tensor. In this work, we establish a simple and efficient necessary and sufficient condition for a tensor M to generate an MPU of size N, namely, Tr(EMN)=Tr(ETN)=1, where EM and ET denote the transfer matrices of M and T = MM†, respectively, with M† being the Hermitian adjoint of M with respect to the physical indices. This condition provides a unified framework for characterizing all uniform MPUs and significantly simplifies their evaluation. Furthermore, we show that locality preservation naturally arises when the MPU is generated for all system sizes. Our results offer new insights into the structure of MPUs, highlighting connections between unitary evolution, transfer matrices, and locality-preserving behavior, with potential extensions to higher-dimensions.
Abstract Matrix product vectors form the appropriate framework to study and classify one-dimensional quantum systems. In this work, we develop the structure theory of matrix product unitary operators (MPUs) which appear e.g. in the description of time evolutions of one-dimensional systems. We prove that all MPUs have a strict causal cone, making them quantum cellular automata (QCAs), and derive a canonical form for MPUs which relates different MPU representations of the same unitary through a local gauge. We use this canonical form to prove an index theorem for MPUs which gives the precise conditions under which two MPUs are adiabatically connected, providing an alternative derivation to that of (Gross et al 2012 Commun. Math. Phys . 310 419) for QCAs. We also discuss the effect of symmetries on the MPU classification. In particular, we characterize the tensors corresponding to MPU that are invariant under conjugation, time reversal, or transposition. In the first case, we give a full characterization of all equivalence classes. Finally, we give several examples of MPU possessing different symmetries.
We study the conditions under which Matrix Product States (MPS) or Matrix Product Operators are exact eigenvectors of an extensive local operator, such as a Hamiltonian. By suitably choosing the local operator, this covers a wide range of settings: Exact eigenstates of Hamiltonians, including scar states, exact MPS trajectories for driven quantum systems, steady states of local Lindbladians, generalized symmetries of either Hamiltonians or density matrices, and many more. Our key result is that a local, fixed-size equation---namely, how a single term in the operator acts on a block of tensors---provides a necessary and sufficient condition for exact solutions. This local characterization allows us to obtain the full space of MPS solutions to all of the aforementioned problems; in particular, we exemplify the power of our results by recovering the quantum group symmetries of the XXZ model. We also discuss applications to numerical algorithms with MPS and the generalization of our results to 2D, i.e., projected entangled pair states (PEPS).
Quantum signal processing combined with quantum eigenvalue transformation has recently emerged as a unifying framework for several quantum algorithms. In its standard form, it consists of two separate routines: block encoding, which encodes a Hamiltonian in a larger unitary, and signal processing, which achieves an almost arbitrary polynomial transformation of such a Hamiltonian using rotation gates. The bottleneck of the entire operation is typically constituted by block encoding, and in recent years, several problem-specific techniques have been introduced to overcome this problem. Within this framework, we present a procedure to block-encode a Hamiltonian based on its matrix product operator (MPO) representation. More specifically, we encode every MPO tensor in a larger unitary of dimension D+2D+2D+2, where $D=\ensuremath{\lceil}{log}_{2}(\ensuremath{\chi})\ensuremath{\rceil}$ is the number of subsequently contracted qubits that scales logarithmically with the virtual bond dimension $\ensuremath{\chi}$. Given any system of size LLL, our method requires L+DL+DL+D ancillary qubits in total, while the number of one- and two-qubit gates decomposing the block-encoding circuit scales as $O(L{\ensuremath{\chi}}^{2})$. Moreover, block encodings generally require postselection. Our model exhibits a success probability decaying exponentially with LLL. Nevertheless, we present a way to mitigate this limitation for finite systems.
We develop a framework for Matrix Product Quantum Channels (MPQCs), a one-dimensional tensor-network description of completely positive, trace-preserving maps. We focus on translation-invariant channels, generated by a single repeated tensor, that admit a local purification. We show that their purifying isometry can always be implemented by a constant-depth brickwork quantum circuit, implying that such channels generate only short-range correlations when applied on product states. In contrast to the unitary setting, where one-dimensional quantum cellular automata (in one-to-one correspondence with matrix product unitaries) carry a nontrivial index, we prove that all locally purified channels belong to a single phase, that is, they can be continuously deformed into one another. We then extend the framework to a broader class of translation-invariant channels capable of generating long-range entanglement and show that these remain deterministically implementable in constant depth using two rounds of measurements and feedforward.
Matrix-product unitaries (MPU) are 1D tensor networks describing time evolution and unitary symmetries of quantum systems, while their action on states by construction preserves the entanglement area law. MPU which are formed by a single repeated tensor are known to coincide with 1D quantum cellular automata (QCA), i.e., unitaries with an exact light cone. However, this correspondence breaks down for MPU with open boundary conditions, even if the resulting operator is translation-invariant. Such unitaries can turn short- to long-range correlations and thus alter the underlying phase of matter. Here we make the first steps towards a theory of MPU with uniform bulk but arbitrary boundary. In particular, we study the structure of a subclass with a direct-sum form which maximally violates the QCA property. We also consider the general case of MPU formed by site-dependent (nonuniform) tensors and show a correspondence between MPU and locally maximally entanglable states.