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arXiv:2210.04187 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Robust analytic continuation of Green's functions via projection, pole estimation, and semidefinite relaxation

Zhen Huang, Emanuel Gull, Lin Lin

Published Feb 23, 2023• 41 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Green's functions of fermions are described by matrix-valued Herglotz-Nevanlinna functions. Since analytic continuation is fundamentally an ill-posed problem, the causal space described by the matrix-valued Herglotz-Nevanlinna structure can be instrumental in improving the accuracy and in enhancing the robustness with respect to noise. We demonstrate a three-pronged procedure for robust analytic continuation called PES: (1) projection of data to the causal space; (2) estimation of pole locations; and (3) semidefinite relaxation within the causal space. We compare the performance of PES with the recently developed Nevanlinna and Carath\'eodory continuation methods and find that PES is more robust in the presence of noise and does not require the usage of extended precision arithmetics. We also demonstrate that a causal projection improves the performance of the Nevanlinna and Carath\'eodory methods. The PES method is generalized to bosonic response functions, for which the Nevanlinna and Carath\'eodory continuation methods have not yet been developed. It is particularly useful for studying spectra with sharp features, as they occur in the study of molecules and band structures in solids.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.107.075151

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Green's functions of fermions are described by matrix-valued Herglotz-Nevanlinna functions. Since analytic continuation is fundamentally an ill-posed problem, the causal space described by the matrix-valued Herglotz-Nevanlinna structure can be instrumental in improving the accuracy and in enhancing the robustness with respect to noise. We demonstrate a three-pronged procedure for robust analytic continuation called PES: (1) projection of data to the causal space; (2) estimation of pole locations; and (3) semidefinite relaxation within the causal space. We compare the performance of PES with the recently developed Nevanlinna and Carath'eodory continuation methods and find that PES is more robust in the presence of noise and does not require the usage of extended precision arithmetics. We also demonstrate that a causal projection improves the performance of the Nevanlinna and Carath'eodory methods. The PES method is generalized to bosonic response functions, for which the Nevanlinna and Carath'eodory continuation methods have not yet been developed. It is particularly useful for studying spectra with sharp features, as they occur in the study of molecules and band structures in solids.
In this paper, we propose an analytic continuation method to extract real-frequency spectral functions from imaginary-frequency Green's functions of quantum many-body systems. This method is based on the pole representation of Matsubara Green's function and a stochastic sampling procedure is utilized to optimize the amplitudes and locations of poles. In order to capture narrow peaks and sharp band edges in the spectral functions, a constrained sampling algorithm and a self-adaptive sampling algorithm are developed. To demonstrate the usefulness and performance of this method, we at first apply it to study the spectral functions of representative fermionic and bosonic correlators. Then we employ this method to tackle the analytic continuation problems of matrix-valued Green's functions. The synthetic Green's functions, as well as realistic correlation functions from finite-temperature quantum many-body calculations, are used as input. The benchmark results demonstrate that this method is capable of reproducing most of the key characteristics in the spectral functions. The sharp, smooth, and multipeak features in both low- and high-frequency regions of spectral functions could be accurately resolved, which overcomes one of the main limitations of the traditional maximum entropy method. More importantly, it exhibits excellent robustness with respect to noisy and incomplete input data. The causality of spectral function is always satisfied even in the presence of sizable noises. As a by-product, this method could derive a fitting formula for the Matsubara data, which provides a compact approximation to the many-body Green's functions. Hence, we expect that this method could become a pivotal workhorse for numerically analytic continuation and be broadly useful in many applications.
Analytic continuation (AC) from imaginary-time Green's function to spectral function is essential in the numerical analysis of dynamical properties in quantum many-body systems. However, this process faces a fundamental challenge: it is an ill-posed problem, leading to unstable spectra against the noise in the Green's function. This instability is further complicated in multi-orbital systems with hybridization between spin-orbitals, where off-diagonal Green's functions yield a spectral matrix with off-diagonal elements, necessitating the matrix's semi-positive definiteness to satisfy the causality. We propose an advanced AC method using sparse modeling for multi-orbital systems, which reduces the effect of noise and ensures the matrix's semi-positive definiteness. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach by contrasting it with the conventional sparse modeling method, focusing on handling Green's functions with off-diagonal elements, thereby demonstrating our proposed method's enhanced stability and precision.
Analytic continuation (AC) from the imaginary-time Green's function to the spectral function is a crucial process for numerical studies of the dynamical properties of quantum many-body systems. This process, however, is an ill-posed problem; that is, the obtained spectrum is unstable against the noise of the Green's function. Though several numerical methods have been developed, each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages. The sparse modeling (SpM) AC method, for example, is robust against the noise of the Green's function but suffers from unphysical oscillations in the low-energy region. We propose a method that combines the SpM AC with the Pad\'e approximation. This combination, called SpM-Pad\'e, inherits robustness against noise from SpM and low-energy accuracy from Pad\'e, compensating for the disadvantages of each. We demonstrate that the SpM-Pad\'e method yields low-variance and low-biased results with almost the same computational cost as that of the SpM method.
Analytical continuation (AC) connects theoretical calculations and experimentally measurable quantities. The recently proposed Nevanlinna AC method is capable of accurately reproducing the sharp features of spectral functions at high frequencies while maintaining the causality of the response function. However, their use is currently limited to fermions. Here, we present an extension of this method to bosons using the hyperbolic tangent trick, allowing us to transform bosons into auxiliary fermions to which the Nevanlinna analytic continuation can be applied.
Finite-temperature quantum field theories are formulated in terms of Green's functions and self-energies on the Matsubara axis. In multiorbital systems, these quantities are related to positive semidefinite matrix-valued functions of the Carath\'eodory and Schur class. Analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of derived quantities such as real-frequency response functions requires analytic continuation of the off-diagonal elements to the real axis. We derive the criteria under which such functions exist for given Matsubara data and present an interpolation algorithm that intrinsically respects their mathematical properties. For small systems with precise Matsubara data, we find that the continuation exactly recovers all off-diagonal and diagonal elements. In real-materials systems, we show that the precision of the continuation is sufficient for the analytic continuation to commute with the Dyson equation, and we show that the truncation of the off-diagonal self-energy elements leads to considerable approximation artifacts.
Analytic continuation is a central step in the simulation of finite-temperature field theories in which numerically obtained Matsubara data are continued to the real frequency axis for a physical interpretation. Numerical analytic continuation is considered to be an ill-posed problem where uncertainties on the Matsubara axis are amplified exponentially. Here, we present a systematic and controlled procedure that approximates any Matsubara function by a minimal pole representation to within a predefined precision. We then show a systematic convergence to the exact spectral function on the real axis as a function of our control parameter for a range of physically relevant setups. Our methodology is robust to noise and paves the way towards reliable analytic continuation in many-body theory and, by providing access to the analytic structure of the functions, a direct theoretical interpretation of physical properties.