This thesis develops advanced Tensor Network (TN) methods to address Hamiltonian Lattice Gauge Theories (LGTs), overcoming limitations in real-time dynamics and finite-density regimes. A novel dressed-site formalism is introduced, enabling efficient truncation of gauge fields while preserving gauge invariance for both Abelian and non-Abelian theories. This formalism is successfully applied to SU(2) Yang-Mills LGTs in two dimensions, providing the first TN simulations of this system and revealing critical aspects of its phase diagram and non-equilibrium behavior, such as a Quantum Many-Body (QMB) scarring dynamics. A generalization of the dressed-site formalism is proposed through a new fermion-to-qubit mapping for general lattice fermion theories, revealing powerful for classical and quantum simulations. Numerical innovations, including the use of optimal space-filling curves such as the Hilbert curve to preserve locality in high-dimensional simulations, further enhance the efficiency of these methods. Together with high-performance computing techniques, these advances open current and future development pathways toward optimized, efficient, and faster simulations on scales comparable to Monte Carlo state-of-the-art.
This thesis develops advanced Tensor Network (TN) methods to address Hamiltonian Lattice Gauge Theories (LGTs), overcoming limitations in real-time dynamics and finite-density regimes. A novel dressed-site formalism is introduced, enabling efficient truncation of gauge fields while preserving gauge invariance for both Abelian and non-Abelian theories. This formalism is successfully applied to SU(2) Yang-Mills LGTs in two dimensions, providing the first TN simulations of this system and revealing critical aspects of its phase diagram and non-equilibrium behavior, such as a Quantum Many-Body (QMB) scarring dynamics. A generalization of the dressed-site formalism is proposed through a new fermion-to-qubit mapping for general lattice fermion theories, revealing powerful for classical and quantum simulations. Numerical innovations, including the use of optimal space-filling curves such as the Hilbert curve to preserve locality in high-dimensional simulations, further enhance the efficiency of these methods. Together with high-performance computing techniques, these advances open current and future development pathways toward optimized, efficient, and faster simulations on scales comparable to Monte Carlo state-of-the-art.
Tensor network methods are numerical tools and algorithms to study many-body quantum systems in and out of equilibrium, based on tailored variational wave functions. They have found significant applications in simulating lattice gauge theories that approach relevant problems in high-energy physics. Compared to Monte Carlo methods, they do not suffer from the sign problem, allowing them to explore challenging regimes such as finite chemical potentials and real-time dynamics. Further development is required to tackle fundamental challenges, such as accessing continuum limits or computations of large-scale quantum chromodynamics. This work reviews the state-of-the-art tensor network methods and discusses a possible roadmap for algorithmic development and strategies to enhance their capabilities and extend their applicability to open high-energy problems. We provide tailored estimates of the theoretical and computational resource scaling for attacking large-scale lattice gauge theories. Tensor networks are a powerful complementary approach to Monte Carlo methods for simulating lattice gauge theories, enabling access to challenging regimes such as real-time dynamics and finite-density systems. This work reviews the state of the art, outlines a roadmap for algorithmic developments, and provides resource estimates to guide large-scale applications in high-energy physics.
We numerically simulate a non-Abelian lattice gauge theory in two spatial dimensions, with tensor networks (TN), up to intermediate sizes ( > 30 matter sites) well beyond exact diagonalization. We focus on the SU(2) Yang-Mills model in Hamiltonian formulation, with dynamical matter and minimally truncated gauge field (hardcore gluon). Thanks to the TN sign-problem-free approach, we characterize the phase diagram of the model at zero and finite baryon number as a function of the quark bare mass and color charge. At intermediate system sizes, we detect a liquid phase of quark-pair bound-state quasiparticles (baryons), whose mass is finite towards the continuum limit. Interesting phenomena arise at the transition boundary where color-electric and color-magnetic terms are maximally frustrated: For low quark masses, we see traces of potential deconfinement, while for high masses, signatures of a possible topological order. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
In the last decade the non-equilibrium dynamics of isolated quantum systems has raised a huge interest for both its conceptual and practical implications. Simulation of quantum dynamics represents by now a very active research effort, with highly controllable quantum devices composed of hundreds of qubits already being realized in numerous setups. These offer the unprecedented possibility to access real-time quantum dynamics and strongly correlated quantum many-body states, opening numerous avenues not only for future quantum technologies, but also for long-standing theoretical problems. One of the most sought-after applications is the computation of real-time evolution in theories of fundamental interactions. Since Wilson's proposal in 1974, the equilibrium phase diagrams of lattice gauge theories have been successfully investigated with Monte Carlo simulations in a wide range of parameters. Nonequilibrium properties, on the other hand, cannot be accessed with conventional techniques. Thanks to the recent advances in numerics (e.g. tensor networks) and experiments (quantum simulation), new promising tools are now available for tackling these questions. Remarkable works have already demonstrated that applying these techniques to simple theories, such as one-dimensional quantum electrodynamics, can help to detect the signatures of confinement and pair creation. Despite these impressive achievements, investigating the non-equilibrium dynamics of gauge theories with quantum simulators turned out to be extremely challenging. This is mostly due to the complex constrained dynamics of these theories, which make their simulation with realistic atomic platforms particularly difficult. At the same time, the dynamical constraints can play a key role in determining novel interesting phenomena and peculiar non-equilibrium properties. These phenomena -- which include, for example, quantum scars, fractons, Hilbert space fragmentation -- can lead to anomalous dynamics, eventually evading the paradigm of thermalization, which predicts the relaxation of physical observable to their thermodynamic values. The aim of this thesis is twofold: first, we want to address through a combination of numerical and analytical tools some of the open questions regarding the non-equilibrium dynamics of quantum many-body systems with constrained Hilbert spaces, including lattice gauge theories. In addition, the work reported here is part of a large effort of the community towards the quantum simulation of complex phenomena of condensed matter and high-energy physics.
We propose a novel tensor-network method to achieve accurate and efficient simulations of Abelian lattice gauge theories (LGTs) in (2+1)D for both ground-state and real-time dynamics. The first key is to identify a gauge canonical form of gauge-invariant tensor-network states, which already simplifies existing algorithms for (1+1)D LGTs. The second key is to employ the gauge canonical form of a projected entangled-pair state (PEPS) combining with variational Monte Carlo, enabling efficient computations for (2+1)D LGTs. We demonstrate the versatile capability of this approach for accurate ground-state simulation of pure Z_{2}, Z_{3}, and Z_{4} gauge theory, odd-Z_{2} gauge theories, and Z_{2} gauge theory coupled to hard-core bosons, on square lattices up to 32×32. Furthermore, we demonstrate that it allows for accurate simulations of real-time dynamics up to long time, exemplified by the dynamics of elementary excitations of the deconfined Z_{2} gauge field at 10×10. This is also the first example of simulating the real-time dynamics of PEPS with variational Monte Carlo, whose impact may extend beyond gauge theory. Our Letter establishes gauge-invariant PEPS as a powerful approach for both ground-state and dynamical simulations, opening up a new avenue for nonperturbatively studying (2+1)D LGTs.
The development of quantum technology and the advent of quantum computation have renewed interest in Hamiltonian formulations of lattice gauge theories. In contrast to Euclidean Monte Carlo calculations, Hamiltonian simulation requires a direct representation of the physical Hilbert space, an efficient treatment of enforcing Gauss' law as constraints, and a formulation of real-time dynamics in terms of degrees of freedom that can be encoded on quantum or quantum-inspired classical platforms. The starting point corresponds to finding a suitable basis for Hamiltonian lattice gauge theories. The existing literature focuses on several complementary approaches: electric basis, magnetic basis, gauge-fixed, quantum-link, qubit-regularised, finite-group, and orbifold formulations. This article primarily focuses on the prepotential and loop--string--hadron formulations, where non-Abelian Gauss laws are solved locally and the dynamics is written directly in terms of gauge-invariant loop, string and hadron excitations. The discussion covers the SU(2) and SU(3) constructions in one spatial dimension, the role of residual Abelian Gauss laws, and the extension to higher dimensions through point splitting. We conclude by highlighting its direct applications: eliminating redundant gauge degrees of freedom makes exact diagonalisation and tensor network calculations feasible for studying real-time dynamics, provides insights into thermalisation properties, enables mapping of physical degrees of freedom onto analog and digital quantum hardware, and enables quantum simulation of dynamics.
Gauge theories establish the standard model of particle physics, and lattice gauge theory (LGT) calculations employing Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods have been pivotal in our understanding of fundamental interactions. The present limitations of MCMC techniques may be overcome by Hamiltonian-based simulations on classical or quantum devices, which further provide the potential to address questions that lay beyond the capabilities of the current approaches. However, for continuous gauge groups, Hamiltonian-based formulations involve infinite-dimensional gauge degrees of freedom that can solely be handled by truncation. Current truncation schemes require dramatically increasing computational resources at small values of the bare couplings, where magnetic field effects become important. Such limitation precludes one from `taking the continuous limit' while working with finite resources. To overcome this limitation, we provide a resource-efficient protocol to simulate LGTs with continuous gauge groups in the Hamiltonian formulation. Our new method allows for calculations at arbitrary values of the bare coupling and lattice spacing. The approach consists of the combination of a Hilbert space truncation with a regularization of the gauge group, which permits an efficient description of the magnetically-dominated regime. We focus here on Abelian gauge theories and use 2 + 1 dimensional quantum electrodynamics as a benchmark example to demonstrate this efficient framework to achieve the continuum limit in LGTs. This possibility is a key requirement to make quantitative predictions at the field theory level and offers the long-term perspective to utilise quantum simulations to compute physically meaningful quantities in regimes that are precluded to quantum Monte Carlo.