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arXiv:1705.09491 · Journal of Statistical Mechanics Theory and Experiment

Divide and conquer method for proving gaps of frustration free Hamiltonians

Michael J Kastoryano, Angelo Lucia

Published Mar 1, 2018• 18 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract Providing system-size independent lower bounds on the spectral gap of local Hamiltonian is in general a hard problem. For the case of finite-range, frustration free Hamiltonians on a spin lattice of arbitrary dimension, we show that a property of the ground state space is sufficient to obtain such a bound. We furthermore show that such a condition is necessary and equivalent to a constant spectral gap. Thanks to this equivalence, we can prove that for gapless models in any dimension, the spectral gap on regions of diameter n is at most o ( log ⁡ ( n ) 2 + ε n ) for any positive ϵ.

DOI
10.1088/1742-5468/aaa793

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Abstract Providing system-size independent lower bounds on the spectral gap of local Hamiltonian is in general a hard problem. For the case of finite-range, frustration free Hamiltonians on a spin lattice of arbitrary dimension, we show that a property of the ground state space is sufficient to obtain such a bound. We furthermore show that such a condition is necessary and equivalent to a constant spectral gap. Thanks to this equivalence, we can prove that for gapless models in any dimension, the spectral gap on regions of diameter n is at most o ( log ⁡ ( n ) 2 + ε n ) for any positive ϵ.
We improve Knabe’s spectral gap bound for frustration-free translation-invariant local Hamiltonians in 1D. The bound is based on a relationship between global and local gaps. The global gap is the spectral gap of a size-m chain with periodic boundary conditions, while the local gap is that of a subchain of size n < m with open boundary conditions. Knabe proved that if the local gap is larger than the threshold value 1/(n − 1) for some n > 2, then the global gap is lower bounded by a positive constant in the thermodynamic limit m → ∞. Here we improve the threshold to 6n(n+1), which is better (smaller) for all n > 3 and which is asymptotically optimal. As a corollary we establish a surprising fact about 1D translation-invariant frustration-free systems that are gapless in the thermodynamic limit: for any such system the spectral gap of a size-n chain with open boundary conditions is upper bounded as O(n−2). This contrasts with gapless frustrated systems where the gap can be Θ(n−1). It also limits the extent to which the area law is violated in these frustration-free systems, since it implies that the half-chain entanglement entropy is O(1/ϵ) as a function of spectral gap ϵ. We extend our results to frustration-free systems on a 2D square lattice.
Knabe's theorem lower bounds the spectral gap of a one-dimensional frustration-free local Hamiltonian in terms of the local spectral gaps of finite regions. It also provides a local spectral gap threshold for Hamiltonians that are gapless in the thermodynamic limit, showing that the local spectral gap must scale inverse linearly with the length of the region for such systems. Recent works have further improved upon this threshold, tightening it in the one-dimensional case and extending it to higher dimensions. Here, we show a local spectral gap threshold for frustration-free Hamiltonians on a finite-dimensional lattice that is optimal up to a constant factor that depends on the dimension of the lattice. Our proof is based on the detectability lemma framework and uses the notion of a coarse-grained Hamiltonian (introduced in [Anshu et al., Phys. Rev. B 93, 205142]) as a link connecting the (global) spectral gap and the local spectral gap.
Abstract We study the stability with respect to a broad class of perturbations of gapped ground-state phases of quantum spin systems defined by frustration-free Hamiltonians. The core result of this work is a proof using the Bravyi–Hastings–Michalakis (BHM) strategy that under a condition of local topological quantum order (LTQO), the bulk gap is stable under perturbations that decay at long distances faster than a stretched exponential. Compared to previous work, we expand the class of frustration-free quantum spin models that can be handled to include models with more general boundary conditions, and models with discrete symmetry breaking. Detailed estimates allow us to formulate sufficient conditions for the validity of positive lower bounds for the gap that are uniform in the system size and that are explicit to some degree. We provide a survey of the BHM strategy following the approach of Michalakis and Zwolak, with alterations introduced to accommodate more general than just periodic boundary conditions and more general lattices. We express the fundamental condition known as LTQO by means of an indistinguishability radius, which we introduce. Using the uniform finite-volume results, we then proceed to study the thermodynamic limit. We first study the case of a unique limiting ground state and then also consider models with spontaneous breaking of a discrete symmetry. In the latter case, LTQO cannot hold for all local observables. However, for perturbations that preserve the symmetry, we show stability of the gap and the structure of the broken symmetry phases. We prove that the GNS Hamiltonian associated with each pure state has a non-zero spectral gap above the ground state.
Abstract We prove that uniformly small short-range perturbations do not close the bulk gap above the ground state of frustration-free quantum spin systems that satisfy a standard local topological quantum order condition. In contrast with earlier results, we do not require a positive lower bound for finite-system spectral gaps uniform in the system size. To obtain this result, we extend the Bravyi–Hastings–Michalakis strategy so it can be applied to perturbations of the GNS Hamiltonian of the infinite-system ground state.
Estimating spectral gaps of quantum many-body Hamiltonians is a highly challenging computational task, even under assumptions of locality and translation-invariance. Yet, the quest for rigorous gap certificates is motivated by their broad applicability, ranging from many-body physics to quantum computing and classical sampling techniques. Here we present a general method for obtaining lower bounds on the spectral gap of frustration-free quantum Hamiltonians in the thermodynamic limit. We formulate the gap certification problem as a hierarchy of optimization problems (semidefinite programs) in which the certificate – a proof of a lower bound on the gap – is improved with increasing levels. Our approach encompasses existing finite-size methods, such as Knabe's bound and its subsequent improvements, as those appear as particular possible solutions in our optimization, which is thus guaranteed to either match or surpass them. We demonstrate the power of the method on one-dimensional spin-chain models where we observe an improvement by several orders of magnitude over existing finite size criteria in both the accuracy of the lower bound on the gap, as well as the range of parameters in which a gap is detected.
Hastings established exponential decay of correlations for ground states of gapped quantum many-body systems. A ground state of a (geometrically) local Hamiltonian with spectral gap ε has correlation length ξ upper bounded as ξ=O(1/ε). In general this bound cannot be improved. Here we study the scaling of the correlation length as a function of the spectral gap in frustration-free local Hamiltonians, and we prove a tight bound ξ=O(1/sqrt[ε]) in this setting. This highlights a fundamental difference between frustration-free and frustrated systems near criticality. The result is obtained using an improved version of the combinatorial proof of correlation decay due to Aharonov, Arad, Vazirani, and Landau.