<!--HTML-->We develop a truncated Hamiltonian method to investigate the dynamics of the 1 +1-dimensional ϕ^4 theory following quantum quenches. The results are compared to two different semiclassical approaches, the self-consistent Gaussian approximation and the truncated Wigner approximation, and used to determine the range of validity of these widely used approaches. We then use this method to investigate the decay by realising it as a quantum quench, and show that in the thin wall limit the theoretical prediction is well reproduced for several values of the coupling in a range of the value of the latent heat, apart from a normalisation factor which only depends on the strength of self-interactions.
<!--HTML-->We develop a truncated Hamiltonian method to investigate the dynamics of the 1 +1-dimensional ϕ^4 theory following quantum quenches. The results are compared to two different semiclassical approaches, the self-consistent Gaussian approximation and the truncated Wigner approximation, and used to determine the range of validity of these widely used approaches. We then use this method to investigate the decay by realising it as a quantum quench, and show that in the thin wall limit the theoretical prediction is well reproduced for several values of the coupling in a range of the value of the latent heat, apart from a normalisation factor which only depends on the strength of self-interactions.
We develop a truncated Hamiltonian method to investigate the dynamics of the (1+1)-dimensional ${\ensuremath{\phi}}^{4}$ theory following quantum quenches. The results are compared to two different semiclassical approaches, the self-consistent Gaussian approximation and the truncated Wigner approximation, and used to determine the range of validity of these widely used approaches. We show that the self-consistent approximation is strongly limited in comparison to the truncated Hamiltonian method which for larger cutoffs is practically exact for the parameter range studied. We find that the self-consistent approximation is only valid when the effective mass is in the vicinity of the renormalized mass. Similarly to the self-consistent approximation, the truncated Wigner approximation (TWA) is not able to capture the correct mass renormalization, and breaks down for strong enough interactions where the bare mass becomes negative. We attribute the failure of TWA to the presence of a classical symmetry-broken fixed point. Aside from establishing the truncated Hamiltonian approach as a powerful tool for studying the dynamics of the ${\ensuremath{\phi}}^{4}$ model, our results on the limitation of semiclassical approximations are expected to be relevant for modeling the dynamics of other quantum field theories.
<!--HTML-->Hamiltonian truncation is a non-perturbative numerical method for calculating observables of a quantum field theory by truncating the Hilbert space to states with energy below a maximum energy cutoff. In this talk I will present an effective field theory approach to Hamiltonian truncation, which provides a systematic way of improving the calculations without increasing the energy cutoff. I will demonstrate this with numerical results for the two dimensional phi^4 theory, and talk about future applications of this method to more complicated theories.
We introduce a non perturbative general approximation scheme (NGAS) that can handle interactions of any strength in quantum theory. This approach starts with an input Hamiltonian that can be solved exactly. The interaction effects are then built into this Hamiltonian through nonlinear feedback enforced by self consistency conditions. While the method itself is nonperturbative it can be systematically improved using a new perturbation method called 'mean field perturbation theory' which does not involve power series expansion in any small parameter. We put this scheme to the test on one dimensional anharmonic interactions using the harmonic approximation. The results are consistently accurate across various cases including quartic, sextic, and octic anharmonic oscillators, as well as the quartic double well oscillator (QDWO) even when the coupling strength varies widely. The flexibility of the method is demonstrated when we swap the input Hamiltonian for that of an infinite square well and still achieve comparable accuracy. When applied to the λϕ4 quantum field theory this approach aligns with the Gaussian effective potential method under the harmonic approximation. Beyond that it reveals the condensate structure of the effective vacuum and highlights the instability of the perturbative ground state. Notably, our ground-state energy results for the QDWO stand in stark contrast to those from standard perturbation theory where Borel summation fails regardless of coupling strength.
We study the nonequilibrium dynamics of the quantum sine-Gordon model describing a pair of Josephson-coupled one-dimensional bosonic quasicondensates. Motivated by experimentally accessible quench procedures where the zero mode of the quasicondensates is weakly coupled to finite momentum modes, we develop a Hamiltonian truncation scheme relying on a mini-superspace treatment of the zero mode (MSTHA). We apply this method to simulate the time evolution after both weak and strong quantum quenches, injecting a low or high energy density into the system, and we demonstrate that MSTHA accurately captures the dynamics from the hard-core boson limit to the experimentally relevant weakly interacting regime for sufficiently mild quenches. In the case of high energy densities, MSTHA breaks down for weak interaction but still extends the range of validity of previous Hamiltonian truncation schemes. We also compare these results to the semiclassical truncated Wigner approximation, and we establish that the dynamics can be well approximated by the semiclassical description in the weakly interacting regime realized in the experiments. In addition, we clarify the importance of the phononic modes depending on the sine-Gordon interaction strength.
In contrast to lattice systems where powerful numerical techniques such as matrix product state based methods are available to study the non-equilibrium dynamics, the non-equilibrium behaviour of continuum systems is much harder to simulate. We demonstrate here that Hamiltonian truncation methods can be efficiently applied to this problem, by studying the quantum quench dynamics of the 1 + 1 dimensional Ising field theory using a truncated free fermionic space approach. After benchmarking the method with integrable quenches corresponding to changing the mass in a free Majorana fermion field theory, we study the effect of an integrability breaking perturbation by the longitudinal magnetic field. In both the ferromagnetic and paramagnetic phases of the model we find persistent oscillations with frequencies set by the low-lying particle excitations not only for small, but even for moderate size quenches. In the ferromagnetic phase these particles are the various non-perturbative confined bound states of the domain wall excitations, while in the paramagnetic phase the single magnon excitation governs the dynamics, allowing us to capture the time evolution of the magnetisation using a combination of known results from perturbation theory and form factor based methods. We point out that the dominance of low lying excitations allows for the numerical or experimental determination of the mass spectra through the study of the quench dynamics.
Abstract The semi-classical discrete truncated Wigner approximation has recently been proposed as a simulation method for spin-1/2 systems. While it appears to provide a powerful approach which shows promising results in higher dimensions and for systems with long-range interactions, its performance is still not well understood in general. Here we perform a systematic benchmarking on the one-dimensional transverse-field Ising model and point to limitations of the approximation arising after sudden quenches into the quantum critical regime. Our procedure allows to identify the limitations of the semi-classical simulations and with that to determine the regimes and questions where quantum simulators can provide information which is inaccessible to semi-classics.