The property of quantum many-body systems under spatial reflection and the relevant physics of the renormalization group (RG) procedure are revealed. By virtue of the matrix product state (MPS) representation, various attributes for translational invariant systems associated with spatial reflection are manifested. We demonstrate subsequently a conservation rule of the conjugative relation for reflectional MPS pairs under RG transformations and illustrate further the property of the fixed points of RG flows. Finally, we show that a similar rule exists with respect to the target states in the density matrix renormalization group algorithm.
Matrix product density operator (MPDO) provides an efficient tensor network representation of mixed states on one-dimensional quantum many-body systems. We study a real-space renormalization group transformation of MPDOs represented by a circuit of local quantum channels. We require that the renormalization group flow is exact, in the sense that it exactly preserves the correlation between the coarse-grained sites and is therefore invertible by another circuit of local quantum channels. Unlike matrix product states (MPS), which always have a well-defined isometric renormalization transformation, we show that general MPDOs do not necessarily admit a converging exact renormalization group flow. We then introduce a subclass of MPDOs with a well-defined renormalization group flow, and show the structure of the MPDOs in the subclass as a representation of a pre-bialgebra structure. As a result, such MPDOs obey generalized symmetry represented by matrix product operator algebras associated with the pre-bialgebra. We also discuss implications with the classification of mixed-state quantum phases.
This dissertation contributes to the ongoing effort of understanding the origins and applications of real-space renormalization group methods in tensor network representations of classical and quantum many-body systems. First, we construct a matrix product operator ansatz to coarse-grain real-space transfer matrices of matrix product state descriptions of one-dimensional quantum spin chains. By treating the physical spin as an impurity, we unravel the virtual entanglement degrees of freedom of matrix product states into a layered structure to reveal an inherent renormalization group scale. Secondly, we rephrase tensor network renormalization for two-dimensional classical lattice models in a manifestly nonnegative way. The resulting real-space renormalization group flow preserves positivity and hence yields an interpretation in terms of Hamiltonian flows, reconciling modern real-space tensor network renormalization methods with traditional block-spin approaches. Thirdly, we study non-local symmetries in tensor networks by expressing two-dimensional classical partition functions in terms of strange correlators of judiciously chosen product states and string-net wave functions. We exhibit and exploit the emerging non-local symmetries of the partition function at criticality and highlight parallels between topological sectors and conformal primary fields in the shared framework of matrix product operator symmetries. Additionally, we provide a complementary perspective on real-space renormalization by recognizing known tensor network renormalization methods as the approximate truncation of an exactly coarse-grained strange correlator.
Renormalization provides a framework for relating microscopic models of physical systems to effective descriptions at larger length scales. This procedure is studied for the boundary states of non-chiral two-dimensional topologically ordered models. The initial data consist of renormalization fixed points built from representations of finite-dimensional
C∗-Hopf algebras, which are then perturbed by uniform on-site noise quantum channels and repeatedly coarse-grained. The resulting flows admit an intrinsic algebraic description in terms of completely positive maps on the
C∗-Hopf algebra or, equivalently, positive linear functionals on its enveloping
C∗-Hopf algebra. Their iteration is governed by convolution powers, and convergent trajectories yield new matrix product density operator fixed points, described by finite
∗-quantum hypergroups. This provides a concrete physical interpretation of such structures. For finite group algebras and their duals, we provide explicit classifications via Goursat's lemma for groups. Finally, we formulate and prove a quantum generalization of Goursat's lemma for finite-dimensional
C∗-Hopf algebras, a result of independent interest, which gives an explicit structural description of all convergent renormalization trajectories.
The truncation or compression of the spectrum of Schmidt values is inherent to the matrix product state (MPS) approximation of one-dimensional quantum ground states. We provide a renormalization group picture by interpreting this compression as an application of Wilson's numerical renormalization group along the imaginary time direction appearing in the path integral representation of the state. The location of the physical index is considered as an impurity in the transfer matrix and static MPS correlation functions are reinterpreted as dynamical impurity correlations. Coarse-graining the transfer matrix is performed using a hybrid variational ansatz based on matrix product operators, combining ideas of MPS and the multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz. Through numerical comparison with conventional MPS algorithms, we explicitly verify the impurity interpretation of MPS compression, as put forward by V. Zauner et al. [New J. Phys. 17, 053002 (2015)] for the transverse-field Ising model. Additionally, we motivate the conceptual usefulness of endowing MPS with an internal layered structure by studying restricted variational subspaces to describe elementary excitations on top of the ground state, which serves to elucidate a transparent renormalization group structure ingrained in MPS descriptions of ground states.