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arXiv:2004.12757 · Journal of the Korean Physical Society

Guide to Exact Diagonalization Study of Quantum Thermalization

Jung-Hoon Jung, Jae Dong Noh

Published Apr 1, 2020• 22 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Exact diagonalization is a powerful numerical method to study isolated quantum many-body systems. This paper provides a review of numerical algorithms to diagonalize the Hamiltonian matrix. Symmetry and the conservation law help us perform the numerical study efficiently. We explain the method to block-diagonalize the Hamiltonian matrix by using particle number conservation, translational symmetry, particle-hole symmetry, and spatial reflection symmetry in the context of the spin-1/2 XXZ model or the hard-core boson model in a one-dimensional lattice. We also explain the method to study the unitary time evolution governed by the Schrödinger equation and to calculate thermodynamic quantities such as the entanglement entropy. As an application, we demonstrate numerical results that support that the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) holds in the XXZ model.

DOI
10.3938/jkps.76.670

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Exact diagonalization is a powerful numerical method to study isolated quantum many-body systems. This paper provides a review of numerical algorithms to diagonalize the Hamiltonian matrix. Symmetry and the conservation law help us perform the numerical study efficiently. We explain the method to block-diagonalize the Hamiltonian matrix by using particle number conservation, translational symmetry, particle-hole symmetry, and spatial reflection symmetry in the context of the spin-1/2 XXZ model or the hard-core boson model in a one-dimensional lattice. We also explain the method to study the unitary time evolution governed by the Schrödinger equation and to calculate thermodynamic quantities such as the entanglement entropy. As an application, we demonstrate numerical results that support that the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) holds in the XXZ model.
Understanding the evolution towards thermal equilibrium of an isolated quantum system is at the foundation of statistical mechanics and a subject of interest in such diverse areas as cold atom physics or the quantum mechanics of black holes. Since a pure state can never evolve into a thermal density matrix, the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) has been put forward by Deutsch and Srednicki as a way to explain this apparent thermalization, similarly to what the ergodic theorem does in classical mechanics. In this paper this hypothesis is tested numerically. First, it is observed that thermalization happens in a subspace of states (the Krylov subspace) with dimension much smaller than that of the total Hilbert space. We check numerically the validity of ETH in such a subspace, for a system of hard core bosons on a two-dimensional lattice. We then discuss how well the eigenstates of the Hamiltonian projected on the Krylov subspace represent the true eigenstates. This discussion is aided by bringing the projected Hamiltonian to the tridiagonal form and interpreting it as an Anderson localization problem for a finite one-dimensional chain. We also consider thermalization of a subsystem and argue that generation of a large entanglement entropy can lead to a thermal density matrix for the subsystem well before the whole system thermalizes. Finally, we comment on possible implications of ETH in quantum gravity.
We investigate the eigenstate thermalization properties of the spin-1/2 XXZ model in two-dimensional rectangular lattices of size L_{1}×L_{2} under periodic boundary conditions. Exploiting the symmetry property, we can perform an exact diagonalization study of the energy eigenvalues up to system size 4×7 and of the energy eigenstates up to 4×6. Numerical analysis of the Hamiltonian eigenvalue spectrum and matrix elements of an observable in the Hamiltonian eigenstate basis supports that the two-dimensional XXZ model follows the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis. When the spin interaction is isotropic, the XXZ model Hamiltonian conserves the total spin and has SU(2) symmetry. We show that the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis is still valid within each subspace where the total spin is a good quantum number.
The Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) explains how isolated quantum many-body systems thermalize by proposing that each energy eigenstate is already thermal. The hypothesis is believed to be essential to the understanding of quantum chaos and implies various important thermodynamic relations. While by now there are many numerical validations of the ETH, only few analytical arguments supporting the ETH have been found (M. Rigol et al., Nature 452, 2008). One of them is based on a semiclassical limit (M. Srednicki, Phys. Rev. E 50, 1994). Another important reasoning was given by Deutsch, who showed how a small interaction, which is modeled by a random matrix, leads to ETH (J.M. Deutsch, Phys. Rev. A 43, 1991). This thesis aims to find justification for the assumptions made by Deutsch from a microscopic point of view. The idea is to analyze whether a generic quantum system can be brought to a form that satisfies Deutsch's ansatz. The method is to use flow equations to define unitary transformations to map the initial Hamiltonian to an effective one, which can be compared to a random matrix. The test system is a one-dimensional hardcore boson model, which is set up using exact diagonalization and numerous symmetries. We analyze the statistical properties of the numerically obtained Hamiltonian matrices and test for normality and compare them to a random transformation. In a second step we verify that the continuous unitary transformations do not destroy the structure of typical few-body observables by studying the scaling of the inverse participation ratio. The obtained results support our hypothesis that it is possible to extend Deutsch's argument to generic microscopic many-body Hamiltonians.
The Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) is a standard tool to understand the thermalization properties of an isolated quantum system. Its generalization to higher order correlations of matrix elements of local operators, dubbed the full ETH, relates the ETH free cumulants to the corresponding thermal free cumulants in the thermodynamic limit. In this work, we numerically test the full ETH predictions using exact diagonalization of two integrable spin models: the Ising and the XXZ Heisenberg models. The differences from the behavior predicted by full ETH in chaotic systems are highlighted and contrasted along the way. We further study the out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC) through its approximate decomposition into contributions involving the second- and fourth-order ETH free cumulants. We find that, although the fourth-order contribution governs the late-time behavior of the OTOC in these integrable models, its dynamics differs significantly from that found in nonintegrable systems.
The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) explains how generic quantum many-body systems thermalize internally. It implies that local operators' time-averaged expectation values approximately equal their thermal expectation values, regardless of microscopic details. The ETH's range of applicability therefore impacts theory and experiments. Murthy et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 140402 (2023)0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.130.140402] recently showed that non-Abelian symmetries conflict with the ETH. Such symmetries have excited interest in quantum thermodynamics lately, as they are equivalent to conserved quantities that fail to commute with each other and noncommutation is a quintessentially quantum phenomenon. Murthy et al. proposed a non-Abelian ETH, which we support numerically. The numerics model a one-dimensional next-nearest-neighbor Heisenberg chain of 18 qubits. We represent local operators with matrices relative to an energy eigenbasis. The matrices bear out seven predictions of the non-Abelian ETH. We also prove analytically that the non-Abelian ETH exhibits a self-consistency property. The proof relies on a thermodynamic-entropy definition different from that of Murthy et al. This work initiates the observation and application of the non-Abelian ETH.
In these lecture notes, we present a pedagogical review of a number of related numerically exact approaches to quantum many‐body problems. In particular, we focus on methods based on the exact diagonalization of the Hamiltonian matrix and on methods extending exact diagonalization using renormalization group ideas, i.e., Wilson’s Numerical Renormalization Group (NRG) and White’s Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG). These methods are standard tools for the investigation of a variety of interacting quantum systems, especially low‐dimensional quantum lattice models. We also survey extensions to the methods to calculate properties such as dynamical quantities and behavior at finite temperature, and discuss generalizations of the DMRG method to a wider variety of systems, such as classical models and quantum chemical problems. Finally, we briefly review some recent developments for obtaining a more general formulation of the DMRG in the context of matrix product states as well as recent progress in calculating the time evolution of quantum systems using the DMRG and the relationship of the foundations of the method with quantum information theory.