The technique of continuous unitary transformations has recently been used to provide physical insight into a diverse array of quantum mechanical systems. However, the question of how to best numerically implement the flow equations has received little attention. The most immediately apparent approach, using standard Runge-Kutta numerical integration algorithms, suffers from both severe inefficiency due to stiffness and the loss of unitarity. After reviewing the formalism of continuous unitary transformations and Wegner's original choice for the infinitesimal generator of the flow, we present a number of approaches to resolving these issues including a choice of generator which induces what we call the ``uniform tangent decay flow'' and three numerical integrators specifically designed to perform continuous unitary transformations efficiently while preserving the unitarity of flow. We conclude by applying one of the flow algorithms to a simple calculation that visually demonstrates the many-body localization transition.
The technique of continuous unitary transformations has recently been used to provide physical insight into a diverse array of quantum mechanical systems. However, the question of how to best numerically implement the flow equations has received little attention. The most immediately apparent approach, using standard Runge-Kutta numerical integration algorithms, suffers from both severe inefficiency due to stiffness and the loss of unitarity. After reviewing the formalism of continuous unitary transformations and Wegner's original choice for the infinitesimal generator of the flow, we present a number of approaches to resolving these issues including a choice of generator which induces what we call the ``uniform tangent decay flow'' and three numerical integrators specifically designed to perform continuous unitary transformations efficiently while preserving the unitarity of flow. We conclude by applying one of the flow algorithms to a simple calculation that visually demonstrates the many-body localization transition.
Continuous unitary transformations, or flow equations, provide a powerful non-perturbative framework for diagonalizing quantum many-body Hamiltonians. This work presents a first-principles proof that the complex, high-dimensional dynamics generated by a Wegner-type flow equation can, under specific and well-defined conditions, rigorously collapse to an exactly integrable second-order ordinary differential equation. We demonstrate that for a one-dimensional spinless fermion model in the non-interacting limit (Δ₀=0), the flow equations for the coupling constants can be derived exactly, revealing a hidden mathematical structure. We term this phenomenon "Emergent Integrability," where the diagonalization flow itself possesses an integrable submanifold, even if the initial Hamiltonian is not integrable. This discovery, established through rigorous and unabridged derivations, reveals that the process of diagonalization can be fundamentally simpler than the initial problem, shedding new light on the intrinsic mathematical structure of renormalization group-like transformations.
We use a novel parametrization of the flowing Hamiltonian to show that the flow equations based on continuous unitary transformations, as proposed by Wegner, can be implemented through a nonlinear partial differential equation involving one flow parameter and two system specific auxiliary variables. The implementation is non-perturbative as the partial differential equation involves a systematic expansion in fluctuations, controlled by the size of the system, rather than the coupling constant. The method is applied to the Lipkin model to construct a mapping which maps the non-interacting spectrum onto the interacting spectrum to a very high accuracy. This function is universal in the sense that the full spectrum for any (large) number of particles can be obtained from it. In a similar way expectation values for a large class of operators can be obtained, which also makes it possible to probe the structure of the eigenstates.
Abstract. We analyze the Schrödingerization method for quantum simulation of a general class of nonunitary dynamics with inhomogeneous source terms. The Schrödingerization technique, introduced in [S. Jin, N. Liu, and Y. Yu, Phys. Rev. Lett., 133 (2024), 230602], transforms any linear ordinary and partial differential equations with nonunitary dynamics into a system under unitary dynamics via a warped phase transition that maps the equations into a higher dimension, making them suitable for quantum simulation. This technique can also be applied to these equations with inhomogeneous terms modeling source or forcing terms, or boundary and interface conditions, and discrete dynamical systems such as iterative methods in numerical linear algebra, through extra equations in the system. Difficulty arises with the presence of inhomogeneous terms since they can change the stability of the original system. In this paper, we systematically study—both theoretically and numerically—the important issue of recovering the original variables from the Schrödingerized equations, even when the evolution operator contains unstable modes. We show that even with unstable modes, one can still construct a stable scheme; however, to recover the original variable, one needs to use suitable data in the extended space. We analyze and compare both the discrete and continuous Fourier transforms used in the extended dimension and derive corresponding error estimates, which allow one to use the more appropriate transform for specific equations. We also provide a smoother initialization for the Schrödingerized system to gain higher-order accuracy in the extended space. We homogenize the inhomogeneous terms with a stretch transformation, making it easier to recover the original variable. Our recovery technique also provides a simple and generic framework to solve general ill-posed problems in a computationally stable way.
Abstract The Wegner flow equation is a differential equation for a family of Hamiltonians and can be considered as a continuous unitary transformation. In essence, the transformation continuously decouples degrees of freedom and gradually converts the transformed Hamiltonian into the near-diagonal form. The Wegner flow equation has so far been applied to many areas of physics, but mainly in perturbative calculations. However, the exact solutions are known only for the simplest of two-dimensional case and this certainly limits the practical application of the method. On the other hand, the knowledge of exact solutions is essential for many physical problems as well as it can help in constructing improved approximated approaches. In this paper we present the exact solution of the Wegner flow equation with the Mielke generator for 3 × 3 Hermitian matrices, the general solutions for N × N tridiagonal Hermitian matrices and partially for 4 × 4 real symmetric matrices.
Recent significant improvements of the numerical solutions of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation beg the question as to whether these recent methods are comparable in efficacy (in terms of accuracy and computational time) to the current "method of choice," i.e., the Chebyshev expansion of the time-evolution operator and the fast-Fourier-transform method of determining the kinetic energy. In this paper we review the methods in question and, by studying the time development of a coherent wave packet in an oscillator well, we are able to assess the effectiveness of the various methods. It turns out that the new generalizations come close (to within an order of magnitude) to being able to generate solutions as precisely and efficiently as the Chebyshev-fast-Fourier-transform method. The strict unitarity of the generalized methods may be an advantage. We also show that the fast-Fourier-transform approach to calculating the kinetic energy can be replaced by straightforward numerical differentiation to obtain the same precision.
We introduce a unified formulation of variational methods for simulating ground state properties of quantum many-body systems. The key feature is a novel variational method over quantum circuits via infinitesimal unitary transformations, inspired by flow equation methods. Variational classes are represented as efficiently contractible unitary networks, including the matrix-product states of density matrix renormalization, multiscale entanglement renormalization (MERA) states, weighted graph states, and quantum cellular automata. In particular, this provides a tool for varying over classes of states, such as MERA, for which so far no efficient way of variation has been known. The scheme is flexible when it comes to hybridizing methods or formulating new ones. We demonstrate the functioning by numerical implementations of MERA, matrix-product states, and a new variational set on benchmarks.