Low-Rank Approximability and Entropy Area Laws for PDEs
Mazen Ali
Abstract
We show how local interactions in a partial differential equation (PDE) model lead to eigenfunctions with favorable low-rank properties. To this end, we utilize ideas from quantum entanglement of multi-particle spin systems. We begin by analyzing the connection between entropy area laws and low-rank approximability. The characterization for 1D chains such as Matrix Product States (MPS) / Tensor Trains (TT) is rather extensive though incomplete. We then show that a Nearest Neighbor Interaction (NNI) PDE operator has eigenfunctions that are approximately separable in a certain sense. Under a further assumption on the approximand, we show that this implies a constant entropy bound. To the best of our knowledge, the presented approach is the first systematic treatment of low-rank approximability for general PDEs. The assumptions are general enough to include a large class of models (in, e.g., quantum mechanics) and have a physical interpretation. The weak points are the aforementioned assumption on the approximand and that the validity is limited to MPS/TT formats.