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arXiv:2409.09685 · Reviews in Mathematical Physics

On the critical finite-size gap scaling for frustration-free Hamiltonians

Marius Lemm, Angelo Lucia

Published Apr 29, 2025• 5 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In this paper, we prove that the critical finite-size gap scaling for frustration-free Hamiltonians is of inverse-square type. The result covers general graphs embedded in [Formula: see text] and general finite-range interactions without requiring assumptions about the ground state correlations. Therefore, the inverse-square critical gap scaling is a robust, universal property of finite-range frustration-free Hamiltonians. This places further limits on their ability to produce conformal field theories in the continuum limit. Our proof refines the divide-and-conquer strategy of Kastoryano and the second author through the refined Detectability Lemma of Gosset–Huang.

DOI
10.1142/s0129055x25500151

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In this paper, we prove that the critical finite-size gap scaling for frustration-free Hamiltonians is of inverse-square type. The result covers general graphs embedded in [Formula: see text] and general finite-range interactions without requiring assumptions about the ground state correlations. Therefore, the inverse-square critical gap scaling is a robust, universal property of finite-range frustration-free Hamiltonians. This places further limits on their ability to produce conformal field theories in the continuum limit. Our proof refines the divide-and-conquer strategy of Kastoryano and the second author through the refined Detectability Lemma of Gosset–Huang.
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.
Frustration-free Hamiltonians provide pivotal models for understanding quantum many-body systems. In this paper, we establish a general framework for frustration-free fermionic systems. First, we derive a necessary and sufficient condition for a free fermion model to be frustration-free. In the case of translation-invariant, noninteracting systems, we show that any band touching between the valence and conduction bands is at least quadratic. Furthermore, by extending the Gosset-Huang inequality to fermionic systems, we demonstrate that even in interacting and non-translation-invariant cases, the finite-size gap of gapless excitations scales as O((log⁡L)2/L2)O((\log L)^2/L^2)O((logL)2/L2), provided the ground-state correlation function exhibits a power-law decay. Our results provide a foundation for studying frustration-free fermionic systems, including flat-band ferromagnetism and ηηη-pairing states.
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.
In quantum many-body systems, the existence of a spectral gap above the ground state has far-reaching consequences. In this paper, we discuss “finite-size” criteria for having a spectral gap in frustration-free spin systems and their applications. We extend a criterion that was originally developed for periodic systems by Knabe and Gosset-Mozgunov to systems with a boundary. Our finite-size criterion says that if the spectral gaps at linear system size n exceed an explicit threshold of order n−3/2, then the whole system is gapped. The criterion takes into account both “bulk gaps” and “edge gaps” of the finite system in a precise way. The n−3/2 scaling is robust: it holds in 1D and 2D systems on arbitrary lattices and with arbitrary finite-range interactions. One application of our results is to give a rigorous foundation to the folklore that 2D frustration-free models cannot host chiral edge modes (whose finite-size spectral gap would scale like n−1).
Recent studies have revealed that frustration-free models, expressed as sums of finite-range interactions or hoppings, exhibit several properties markedly different from those of frustrated models. In this work, we demonstrate that, by relaxing the finite-range condition to allow for exponentially decaying hoppings, one can build gapped frustration-free systems that realize Chern insulators as well as quasidegenerate ground states with finite-size splittings. Moreover, by permitting power-law decaying hoppings, we also construct a gapless band metal whose finite-size gap scales inversely with the system size LLL. These findings serve as an important step toward clarifying the general properties of frustration-free systems and those represented by tensor network states.
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.