Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Tobias J. Osborne

Publications and source records attributed to Tobias J. Osborne.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
arXiv2010

Ground states of unfrustrated spin Hamiltonians satisfy an area law

We show that ground states of unfrustrated quantum spin-1/2 systems on general lattices satisfy an entanglement area law, provided that the Hamiltonian can be decomposed into nearest-neighbor interaction terms which have entangled excited states. The ground state manifold can be efficiently described as the image of a low-dimensional subspace of low Schmidt measure, under an efficiently contractible tree-tensor network. This structure gives rise to the possibility of efficiently simulating the complete ground space (which is in general degenerate). We briefly discuss "non-generic" cases, including highly degenerate interactions with product eigenbases, using a relationship to percolation theory. We finally assess the possibility of using such tree tensor networks to simulate almost frustration-free spin models.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2010

Quantum boolean functions

In this paper we introduce the study of quantum boolean functions, which are unitary operators f whose square is the identity: f^2 = I. We describe several generalisations of well-known results in the theory of boolean functions, including quantum property testing; a quantum version of the Goldreich-Levin algorithm for finding the large Fourier coefficients of boolean functions; and two quantum versions of a theorem of Friedgut, Kalai and Naor on the Fourier spectra of boolean functions. In order to obtain one of these generalisations, we prove a quantum extension of the hypercontractive inequality of Bonami, Gross and Beckner.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2010

Holographic quantum states

We show how continuous matrix product states of quantum field theories can be described in terms of the dissipative non-equilibrium dynamics of a lower-dimensional auxiliary boundary field theory. We demonstrate that the spatial correlation functions of the bulk field can be brought into one-to-one correspondence with the temporal statistics of the quantum jumps of the boundary field. This equivalence: (1) illustrates an intimate connection between the theory of continuous quantum measurement and quantum field theory; (2) gives an explicit construction of the boundary field theory allowing the extension of real-space renormalization group methods to arbitrary dimensional quantum field theories without the introduction of a lattice parameter; and (3) yields a novel interpretation of recent cavity QED experiments in terms of quantum field theory, and hence paves the way toward observing genuine quantum phase transitions in such zero-dimensional driven quantum systems.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2008

A quantum algorithm to solve nonlinear differential equations

In this paper we describe a quantum algorithm to solve sparse systems of nonlinear differential equations whose nonlinear terms are polynomials. The algorithm is nondeterministic and its expected resource requirements are polylogarithmic in the number of variables and exponential in the integration time. The best classical algorithm runs in a time scaling linearly with the number of variables, so this provides an exponential improvement. The algorithm is built on two subroutines: (i) a quantum algorithm to implement a nonlinear transformation of the probability amplitudes of an unknown quantum state; and (ii) a quantum implementation of Euler's method.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2008

Information propagation through quantum chains with fluctuating disorder

We investigate the propagation of information through one-dimensional quantum chains in fluctuating external fields. We find that information propagation is suppressed, but in a quite different way compared to the situation with static disorder. We study two settings: (i) a general model where an unobservable fluctuating field acts as a source of decoherence; (ii) the XX model with both observable and unobservable fluctuating fields. In the first setting we establish a noise threshold below which information can propagate ballistically and above which information is localised. In the second setting we find localisation for all levels of unobservable noise, whilst an observable field can yield diffusive propagation of information.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2008

Almost commuting unitaries with spectral gap are near commuting unitaries

Let M_n be the collection of n x n complex matrices equipped with operator norm. Suppose U, V \in M_n are two unitary matrices, each possessing a gap larger than Δin their spectrum, which satisfy ||UV-VU|| \le ε. Then it is shown that there are two unitary operators X and Y satisfying XY-YX = 0 and ||U-X|| + ||V-Y|| \le E(Δ^2/ε) (ε/Δ^2)^(1/6), where E(x) is a function growing slower than x^(1/k) for any positive integer k.

math.OA↗
arXiv2008

Entropic bounds for the quantum marginal problem

The quantum marginal problem asks, given a set of reduced quantum states of a multipartite system, whether there exists a joint quantum state consistent with these reduced states. The quantum marginal problem is known to be hard to solve in general as it is a variant of the N-representability problem. We provide entropic bounds on the number of orthogonal solutions to the quantum marginal problem.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2008

Unifying variational methods for simulating quantum many-body systems

We introduce a unified formulation of variational methods for simulating ground state properties of quantum many-body systems. The key feature is a novel variational method over quantum circuits via infinitesimal unitary transformations, inspired by flow equation methods. Variational classes are represented as efficiently contractible unitary networks, including the matrix-product states of density matrix renormalization, multiscale entanglement renormalization (MERA) states, weighted graph states, and quantum cellular automata. In particular, this provides a tool for varying over classes of states, such as MERA, for which so far no efficient way of variation has been known. The scheme is flexible when it comes to hybridizing methods or formulating new ones. We demonstrate the functioning by numerical implementations of MERA, matrix-product states, and a new variational set on benchmarks.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2007

A Finite de Finetti Theorem for Infinite-Dimensional Systems

We formulate and prove a de Finetti representation theorem for finitely exchangeable states of a quantum system consisting of k infinite-dimensional subsystems. The theorem is valid for states that can be written as the partial trace of a pure state chosen from a family of subsets C_n of the full symmetric subspace for $n$ subsystems. We show that such states become arbitrarily close to mixtures of pure power states as n increases. We give a second equivalent characterization of the family C_n.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2007

The ground state of a class of noncritical 1D quantum spin systems can be approximated efficiently

We study families H_n of 1D quantum spin systems, where n is the number of spins, which have a spectral gap ΔE between the ground-state and first-excited state energy that scales, asymptotically, as a constant in n. We show that if the ground state |Ω_m> of the hamiltonian H_m on m spins, where m is an O(1) constant, is locally the same as the ground state |Ω_n>, for arbitrarily large n, then an arbitrarily good approximation to the ground state of H_n can be stored efficiently for all n. We formulate a conjecture that, if true, would imply our result applies to all noncritical 1D spin systems. We also include an appendix on quasi-adiabatic evolutions.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2007

Simulating adiabatic evolution of gapped spin systems

We show that adiabatic evolution of a low-dimensional lattice of quantum spins with a spectral gap can be simulated efficiently. In particular, we show that as long as the spectral gap ΔE between the ground state and the first excited state is any constant independent of n, the total number of spins, then the ground-state expectation values of local operators, such as correlation functions, can be computed using polynomial space and time resources. Our results also imply that the local ground-state properties of any two spin models in the same quantum phase can be efficiently obtained from each other. A consequence of these results is that adiabatic quantum algorithms can be simulated efficiently if the spectral gap doesn't scale with n. The simulation method we describe takes place in the Heisenberg picture and does not make use of the finitely correlated state/matrix product state formalism.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2006

Approximate locality for quantum systems on graphs

In this Letter we make progress on a longstanding open problem of Aaronson and Ambainis [Theory of Computing 1, 47 (2005)]: we show that if A is the adjacency matrix of a sufficiently sparse low-dimensional graph then the unitary operator e^{itA} can be approximated by a unitary operator U(t) whose sparsity pattern is exactly that of a low-dimensional graph which gets more dense as |t| increases. Secondly, we show that if U is a sparse unitary operator with a gap Δin its spectrum, then there exists an approximate logarithm H of U which is also sparse. The sparsity pattern of H gets more dense as 1/Δincreases. These two results can be interpreted as a way to convert between local continuous-time and local discrete-time processes. As an example we show that the discrete-time coined quantum walk can be realised as an approximately local continuous-time quantum walk. Finally, we use our construction to provide a definition for a fractional quantum fourier transform.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2006

General entanglement scaling laws from time evolution

We establish a general scaling law for the entanglement of a large class of ground states and dynamically evolving states of quantum spin chains: we show that the geometric entropy of a distinguished block saturates, and hence follows an entanglement-boundary law. These results apply to any ground state of a gapped model resulting from dynamics generated by a local hamiltonian, as well as, dually, to states that are generated via a sudden quench of an interaction as recently studied in the case of dynamics of quantum phase transitions. We achieve these results by exploiting ideas from quantum information theory and making use of the powerful tools provided by Lieb-Robinson bounds. We also show that there exist noncritical fermionic systems and equivalent spin chains with rapidly decaying interactions whose geometric entropy scales logarithmically with block length. Implications for the classical simulatability are outlined.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2006

The Dynamics of 1D Quantum Spin Systems Can Be Approximated Efficiently

In this Letter we show that an arbitrarily good approximation to the propagator e^{itH} for a 1D lattice of n quantum spins with hamiltonian H may be obtained with polynomial computational resources in n and the error ε, and exponential resources in |t|. Our proof makes use of the finitely correlated state/matrix product state formalism exploited by numerical renormalisation group algorithms like the density matrix renormalisation group. There are two immediate consequences of this result. The first is that the Vidal's time-dependent density matrix renormalisation group will require only polynomial resources to simulate 1D quantum spin systems for logarithmic |t|. The second consequence is that continuous-time 1D quantum circuits with logarithmic |t| can be simulated efficiently on a classical computer, despite the fact that, after discretisation, such circuits are of polynomial depth.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2006

Statics and Dynamics of Quantum XY and Heisenberg Systems on Graphs

We consider the statics and dynamics of distinguishable spin-1/2 systems on an arbitrary graph G with N vertices. In particular, we consider systems of quantum spins evolving according to one of two hamiltonians: (i) the XY hamiltonian H_XY, which contains an XY interaction for every pair of spins connected by an edge in G; and (ii) the Heisenberg hamiltonian H_Heis, which contains a Heisenberg interaction term for every pair of spins connected by an edge in G. We find that the action of the XY (respectively, Heisenberg) hamiltonian on state space is equivalent to the action of the adjacency matrix (respectively, combinatorial laplacian) of a sequence G_k, k=0,..., N of graphs derived from G (with G_1=G). This equivalence of actions demonstrates that the dynamics of these two models is the same as the evolution of a free particle hopping on the graphs G_k. Thus we show how to replace the complicated dynamics of the original spin model with simpler dynamics on a more complicated geometry. A simple corollary of our approach allows us to write an explicit spectral decomposition of the XY model in a magnetic field on the path consisting of N vertices. We also use our approach to utilise results from spectral graph theory to solve new spin models: the XY model and heisenberg model in a magnetic field on the complete graph.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2006

A Renormalisation-Group Algorithm for Eigenvalue Density Functions of Interacting Quantum Systems

We present a certifiable algorithm to calculate the eigenvalue density function -- the number of eigenvalues within an infinitesimal interval -- for an arbitrary 1D interacting quantum spin system. Our method provides an arbitrarily accurate numerical representation for the smeared eigenvalue density function, which is the convolution of the eigenvalue density function with a gaussian of prespecified width. In addition, with our algorithm it is possible to investigate the density of states near the ground state. This can be used to numerically determine the size of the ground-state energy gap for the system to within a prespecified confidence interval. Our method exploits a finitely correlated state/matrix product state representation of the propagator and applies equally to disordered and critical interacting 1D quantum spin systems. We illustrate our method by calculating an approximation to the eigenvalue density function for a random antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2006

General Monogamy Inequality for Bipartite Qubit Entanglement

We consider multipartite states of qubits and prove that their bipartite quantum entanglement, as quantified by the concurrence, satisfies a monogamy inequality conjectured by Coffman, Kundu, and Wootters. We relate this monogamy inequality to the concept of frustration of correlations in quantum spin systems.

quant-ph↗