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arXiv:1912.10572 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Entanglement compression in scale space: From the multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz to matrix product operators

Karel Van Acoleyen, Andrew Hallam, Matthias Bal, Markus Hauru, Jutho Haegeman, Frank Verstraete

Published Oct 15, 2020• 3 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) provides a constructive algorithm for realizing wave functions that are inherently scale invariant. Unlike conformally invariant partition functions, however, the finite bond dimension $\ensuremath{\chi}$ of the MERA provides a cutoff in the fields that can be realized. In this paper, we demonstrate that this cutoff is equivalent to the one obtained when approximating a thermal state of a critical Hamiltonian with a matrix product operator (MPO) of finite bond dimension $\ensuremath{\chi}$. This is achieved by constructing an explicit mapping between the isometries of the MERA and the local tensors of the MPO. In terms of energy scales, our results show that a finite bond dimension MERA is equivalent to introducing both an infrared and an ultraviolet scale, characterizing relevant and irrelevant perturbations on the underlying conformal field theory.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.102.165131

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This thesis reviews the multiscale entanglement renormalisation ansatz or MERA, a numerical tool for the study of quantum many-body systems and a discrete realisation of the AdS/CFT duality. The thesis covers an introduction to the necessary background concepts of entanglement, entanglement entropy and tensor network states, the structure and main features of MERA and its applications in condensed matter theory and holography. Also covered are details on the algorithmic implementation of MERA and some of its generalisations and extensions. MERA belongs to a class of variational ansatze for quantum many-body states known as tensor network states. It is especially well-suited for the study of scale invariant critical points. MERA is based on a real-space renormalisation group procedure called entanglement renormalisation, designed to systematically handle entanglement at different length scales along the coarse-graining flow. Entanglement renormalisation has be used for example to efficiently describe Kitaev states of the toric code, the prime example of topological order, and numerically study the ground state of the highly frustrated spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on a kagome lattice and various other one- and two-dimensional lattice models. The geometric and causal structure of MERA, which underlies its effectiveness as a numerical tool, also makes it a discrete version of the AdS/CFT duality. This duality describes a conformal field theory by a gravity theory in a higher dimensional space, and vice versa. The duality is manifest in the scaling of entanglement entropy in MERA, which is governed by a law highly analogous to the Ryu-Takayanagi formula for holographic entanglement entropy, in the connection between thermal states and a black-hole-like MERA and in the connection between correlation functions and holographic geodesics in a scale invariant MERA. The aim of this thesis is to lead the reader to an understanding of what MERA is, how it works and how it can be used. MERA's core features and uses are presented in a comprehensive and explicit way, and a broad view of possible applications and further directions is given. Plenty of references are also offered to direct the reader to further research on how MERA may relate to his/her interests.

Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja•Nov 19, 2013•6 citations
The multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) provides a constructive algorithm for realizing wave functions that are inherently scale invariant. Unlike conformally invariant partition functions, however, the finite bond dimension \ensuremathχ\ensuremath{\chi}\ensuremathχ of the MERA provides a cutoff in the fields that can be realized. In this paper, we demonstrate that this cutoff is equivalent to the one obtained when approximating a thermal state of a critical Hamiltonian with a matrix product operator (MPO) of finite bond dimension \ensuremathχ\ensuremath{\chi}\ensuremathχ. This is achieved by constructing an explicit mapping between the isometries of the MERA and the local tensors of the MPO. In terms of energy scales, our results show that a finite bond dimension MERA is equivalent to introducing both an infrared and an ultraviolet scale, characterizing relevant and irrelevant perturbations on the underlying conformal field theory.
The multi-scale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) provides a natural description of the ground state of a quantum critical Hamiltonian on the lattice. From an optimized MERA, one can extract the scaling dimensions of the underlying conformal field theory. However, extracting conformal data from the ascending superoperator derived from MERA seems to have a limited range of accuracy, even after increasing the bond dimension. Here, we propose an alternative ansatz based on an increasing number of disentangling layers. This leads to generalized versions of MERA that improve the extraction of scaling dimensions, as tested in the Gaussian MERA setting for the critical Ising model.
The generalization of the multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) to continuous systems, or cMERA [Haegeman et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 100402 (2013)], is expected to become a powerful variational ansatz for the ground state of strongly interacting quantum field theories. In this Letter, we investigate, in the simpler context of Gaussian cMERA for free theories, the extent to which the cMERA state $|{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Psi}}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}}⟩$ with finite UV cutoff $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$ can capture the spacetime symmetries of the ground state $|\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Psi}}⟩$. For a free boson conformal field theory (CFT) in 1+11+11+1 dimensions, as a concrete example, we build a quasilocal unitary transformation VVV that maps $|\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Psi}}⟩$ into $|{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Psi}}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}}⟩$ and show two main results. (i) Any spacetime symmetry of the ground state $|\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Psi}}⟩$ is also mapped by VVV into a spacetime symmetry of the cMERA $|{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Psi}}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}}⟩$. However, while in the CFT, the stress-energy tensor ${T}_{\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\nu}}(x)$ (in terms of which all the spacetime symmetry generators are expressed) is local, and the corresponding cMERA stress-energy tensor ${T}_{\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\nu}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}}(x)=V{T}_{\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\nu}}(x){V}^{\ifmmode\dagger\else\textdagger\fi{}}$ is quasilocal. (ii) From the cMERA, we can extract quasilocal scaling operators ${O}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}}(x)$ characterized by the exact same scaling dimensions ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}}$, conformal spins ${s}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}}$, operator product expansion coefficients ${C}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{\beta}\ensuremath{\gamma}}$, and central charge ccc as the original CFT. Finally, we argue that these results should also apply to interacting theories.
The multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) can be used, in its scale invariant version, to describe the ground state of a lattice system at a quantum-critical point. From the scale invariant MERA one can determine the local scaling operators of the model. Here we show that, in the presence of a global symmetry G\mathcal{G}G, it is also possible to determine a class of nonlocal scaling operators. Each operator consists, for a given group element g∊Gg∊\mathcal{G}g∊G, of a semi-infinite string ${\ensuremath{\Gamma}}_{g}^{\ensuremath{\vartriangleleft}}$ with a local operator $\ensuremath{\varphi}$ attached to its open end. In the case of the quantum Ising model, G=Z2\mathcal{G}={\mathbb{Z}}_{2}G=Z2​, they correspond to the disorder operator $\ensuremath{\mu}$, the fermionic operators $\ensuremath{\psi}$ and $\overline{\ensuremath{\psi}}$, and all their descendants. Together with the local scaling operators identity I\mathbb{I}I, spin $\ensuremath{\sigma}$, and energy ϵϵϵ, the fermionic and disorder scaling operators $\ensuremath{\psi}$, $\overline{\ensuremath{\psi}}$, and $\ensuremath{\mu}$ are the complete list of primary fields of the Ising CFT. Therefore the scale invariant MERA allows us to characterize all the conformal towers of this CFT.
We show how to build a multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) representation of the ground state of a many-body Hamiltonian H by applying the recently proposed tensor network renormalization [G. Evenbly and G. Vidal, Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 180405 (2015)] to the Euclidean time evolution operator e(-βH) for infinite β. This approach bypasses the costly energy minimization of previous MERA algorithms and, when applied to finite inverse temperature β, produces a MERA representation of a thermal Gibbs state. Our construction endows tensor network renormalization with a renormalization group flow in the space of wave functions and Hamiltonians (and not merely in the more abstract space of tensors) and extends the MERA formalism to classical statistical systems.
We propose the use of entanglement renormalization techniques to study boundary critical phenomena on a lattice system. The multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA), in its scale invariant version, offers a very compact approximation to quantum critical ground states. Here we show that, by adding a boundary to the MERA, an accurate approximation to the ground state of a semi-infinite critical chain with an open boundary is obtained, from which one can extract boundary scaling operators and their scaling dimensions. As in Wilson's renormalization-group formulation of the Kondo problem, our construction produces, as a side result, an effective chain displaying explicit separation of energy scales. We present benchmark results for the quantum Ising and quantum XX models with free and fixed boundary conditions.
This thesis reviews the multiscale entanglement renormalisation ansatz or MERA, a numerical tool for the study of quantum many-body systems and a discrete realisation of the AdS/CFT duality. The thesis covers an introduction to the necessary background concepts of entanglement, entanglement entropy and tensor network states, the structure and main features of MERA and its applications in condensed matter theory and holography. Also covered are details on the algorithmic implementation of MERA and some of its generalisations and extensions. MERA belongs to a class of variational ansatze for quantum many-body states known as tensor network states. It is especially well-suited for the study of scale invariant critical points. MERA is based on a real-space renormalisation group procedure called entanglement renormalisation, designed to systematically handle entanglement at different length scales along the coarse-graining flow. Entanglement renormalisation has be used for example to efficiently describe Kitaev states of the toric code, the prime example of topological order, and numerically study the ground state of the highly frustrated spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on a kagome lattice and various other one- and two-dimensional lattice models. The geometric and causal structure of MERA, which underlies its effectiveness as a numerical tool, also makes it a discrete version of the AdS/CFT duality. This duality describes a conformal field theory by a gravity theory in a higher dimensional space, and vice versa. The duality is manifest in the scaling of entanglement entropy in MERA, which is governed by a law highly analogous to the Ryu-Takayanagi formula for holographic entanglement entropy, in the connection between thermal states and a black-hole-like MERA and in the connection between correlation functions and holographic geodesics in a scale invariant MERA. The aim of this thesis is to lead the reader to an understanding of what MERA is, how it works and how it can be used. MERA's core features and uses are presented in a comprehensive and explicit way, and a broad view of possible applications and further directions is given. Plenty of references are also offered to direct the reader to further research on how MERA may relate to his/her interests.