There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

We present the critical theory of a number of zero-temperature phase transitions of quantum antiferromagnets and interacting boson systems in two dimensions. The most important example is the transition of the $S=1∕2$ square lattice antiferromagnet between the N\'eel state (which breaks spin rotation invariance) and the paramagnetic valence bond solid (which preserves spin rotation invariance but breaks lattice symmetries). We show that these two states are separated by a second-order quantum phase transition. This conflicts with Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson theory, which predicts that such states with distinct broken symmetries are generically separated either by a first-order transition, or by a phase with co-existing orders. The critical theory of the second-order transition is not expressed in terms of the order parameters characterizing either state, but involves fractionalized degrees of freedom and an emergent, topological, global conservation law. A closely related theory describes the superfluid-insulator transition of bosons at half filling on a square lattice, in which the insulator has a bond density wave order. Similar considerations are shown to apply to transitions of antiferromagnets between the valence bond solid and the ${Z}_{2}$ spin liquid: the critical theory has deconfined excitations interacting with an emergent $\mathrm{U}(1)$ gauge force. We comment on the broader implications of our results for the study of quantum criticality in correlated electron systems.

Quantum criticality: beyond the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson paradigm

https://pure.mpg.de/pubman/item/item_3185237_2/component/file_3185538/5880.pdf

Time-evolution methods for matrix-product states

We study the renormalization group flow of the Lagrangian for statistical and quantum systems by representing their path integral in terms of a tensor network. Using a tensor-entanglement-filtering renormalization approach that removes local entanglement and produces a coarse-grained lattice, we show that the resulting renormalization flow of the tensors in the tensor network has a nice fixed-point structure. The isolated fixedpoint tensors Tinv plus the symmetry group Gsym of the tensors i.e., the symmetry group of the Lagrangian characterize various phases of the system. Such a characterization can describe both the symmetry breaking phases and topological phases, as illustrated by two-dimensional 2D statistical Ising model, 2D statistical loop-gas model, and 1+1D quantum spin-1/2 and spin-1 models. In particular, using such a Gsym,Tinv characterization, we show that the Haldane phase for a spin-1 chain is a phase protected by the time-reversal, parity, and translation symmetries. Thus the Haldane phase is a symmetry-protected topological phase. The Gsym,Tinv characterization is more general than the characterizations based on the boundary spins and string order parameters. The tensor renormalization approach also allows us to study continuous phase transitions between symmetry breaking phases and/or topological phases. The scaling dimensions and the central charges for the critical points that describe those continuous phase transitions can be calculated from the fixed-point tensors at those critical points.

Tensor-entanglement-filtering renormalization approach and symmetry-protected topological order

Originally developed in the context of condensed-matter physics and based on renormalization group ideas, tensor networks have been revived thanks to quantum information theory and the progress in understanding the role of entanglement in quantum many-body systems. Moreover, tensor network states have turned out to play a key role in other scientific disciplines. In this context, here I provide an overview of the basic concepts and key developments in the field. I briefly discuss the most important tensor network structures and algorithms, together with an outline of advances related to global and gauge symmetries, fermions, topological order, classification of phases, entanglement Hamiltonians, holografic duality, artificial intelligence, the 2D Hubbard model, 2D quantum antiferromagnets, conformal field theory, quantum chemistry, disordered systems and many-body localization. Understanding entanglement in many-body systems provided a description of complex quantum states in terms of tensor networks. This Review revisits the main tensor network structures, key ideas behind their numerical methods and their application in fields beyond condensed matter physics.

Tensor networks for complex quantum systems

The defining problem in frustrated quantum magnetism, the ground state of the nearest-neighbor S=1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on the kagome lattice, has defied all theoretical and numerical methods employed to date. We apply the formalism of tensor-network states, specifically the method of projected entangled simplex states, which combines infinite system size with a correct accounting for multipartite entanglement. By studying the ground-state energy, the finite magnetic order appearing at finite tensor bond dimensions, and the effects of a next-nearest-neighbor coupling, we demonstrate that the ground state is a gapless spin liquid. We discuss the comparison with other numerical studies and the physical interpretation of this result.

/pdf/gapless-spin-liquid-ground-state-in-the-s-1-2-kagome-2cq12m8723.pdf

Gapless Spin-Liquid Ground State in the S = 1 / 2 Kagome Antiferromagnet

Gapless Spin-Liquid Ground State in the S=1/2 Kagome Antiferromagnet

In the tensor-network framework, the expectation values of two-dimensional quantum states are evaluated by contracting a double-layer tensor network constructed from initial and final tensor-network states. The computational cost of carrying out this contraction is generally very high, which limits the largest bond dimension of tensor-network states that can be accurately studied to a relatively small value. We propose an optimized contraction scheme to solve this problem by mapping the double-layer tensor network onto an intersected single-layer tensor network. This reduces greatly the bond dimensions of local tensors to be contracted and improves dramatically the efficiency and accuracy of the evaluation of expectation values of tensor-network states. It almost doubles the largest bond dimension of tensor-network states whose physical properties can be efficiently and reliably calculated, and it extends significantly the application scope of tensor-network methods.

Optimized contraction scheme for tensor-network states

The deconfined quantum critical point (DQCP) was originally proposed as a continuous transition between two spontaneous symmetry breaking phases in 2D spin-1/2 systems. While great efforts have been spent on the DQCP for 2D systems, both theoretically and numerically, ambiguities among the nature of the transition are still not completely clarified. Here we shift the focus to a recently proposed 1D incarnation of DQCP in a spin-1/2 chain. By solving it with the variational matrix product state in the thermodynamic limit, a continuous transition between a valence-bond solid phase and a ferromagnetic phase is discovered. The scaling dimensions of various operators are calculated and compared with those from field theoretical description. At the critical point, two emergent O(2) symmetries are revealed, and the associated conserved current operators with exact integer scaling dimensions are determined with scrutiny. Our findings provide the low-dimensional analog of DQCP where unbiased numerical results are in perfect agreement with the controlled field theoretical predictions and have extended the realm of the unconventional phase transition as well as its identification with the advanced numerical methodology.

Emergent symmetry and conserved current at a one-dimensional incarnation of deconfined quantum critical point

We investigate the critical behavior and the duality property of the ferromagnetic q-state clock model on the square lattice based on the tensor-network formalism. From the entanglement spectra of local tensors defined in the original and dual lattices, we obtain the exact self-dual points for the model with q ≤ 5 and approximate self-dual points for q ≥ 6. We calculate accurately the lower and upper critical temperatures for the six-state clock model from the fixed-point tensors determined using the higher-order tensor renormalization group method and compare with other numerical results.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0256-307X/34/5/050503/pdf

Rui-Zhen Huang

Papers

Gapless Spin-Liquid Ground State in the S = 1 / 2 Kagome Antiferromagnet

Gapless Spin-Liquid Ground State in the S=1/2 Kagome Antiferromagnet

Optimized contraction scheme for tensor-network states

Emergent symmetry and conserved current at a one-dimensional incarnation of deconfined quantum critical point

Phase Transition of the q -State Clock Model: Duality and Tensor Renormalization