arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Yichen Huang.
A (deterministic) polynomial-time algorithm is proposed for approximating the ground state of (general) one-dimensional gapped Hamiltonians. Let $ε,n,η$ be the energy gap, the system size, and the desired precision, respectively. Neglecting $ε$-dependent subpolynomial (in $n$) and constant factors, the running time of the algorithm is $n^{O(1)}$ for $η=n^{-O(1)}$.
An efficient numerical method is developed using the matrix product formalism for computing the properties at finite energy densities in one-dimensional (1D) many-body localized (MBL) systems. Arguing that any efficient (possibly quantum) algorithm can only have a polynomially small energy resolution, we propose a (rigorous) polynomial-time (classical) algorithm that outputs a diagonal density operator supported on a microcanonical ensemble of an inverse polynomial bandwidth. The proof uses no other conditions for MBL but assumes that the effect of any local perturbation (e.g., injecting conserved charges) is restricted to a region whose radius grows logarithmically with time. A non-optimal version of this algorithm efficiently simulates the quantum phase estimation algorithm in 1D MBL systems; a heuristic version of the algorithm can be easily coded and used to, e.g., detect energy-tuned dynamical quantum phase transitions between MBL phases. We extend the algorithm to two and higher spatial dimensions using the projected entangled pair formalism.
We construct a solvable spin chain model of many-body localization (MBL) with a tunable mobility edge. This simple model not only demonstrates analytically the existence of mobility edges in interacting one-dimensional (1D) disordered systems, but also allows us to study their physics. By establishing a connection between MBL and a quantum central limit theorem (QCLT), we show that many-body localization-delocalization transitions can be visualized as tuning a mobility edge in the energy spectrum. Since the effective disorder strength for individual eigenstates depends on energy density, we identify "energy-resolved disorder strength" as a physical mechanism for the appearance of mobility edges, and support the universality of this mechanism by arguing its presence in a large class of models including the random-field Heisenberg chain. We also construct models with multiple mobility edges. All our constructions can be made translationally invariant.
Topological quantum states cannot be created from product states with local quantum circuits of constant depth and are in this sense more entangled than topologically trivial states, but how entangled are they? Here we quantify the entanglement in one-dimensional topological states by showing that local quantum circuits of linear depth are necessary to generate them from product states. We establish this linear lower bound for both bosonic and fermionic one-dimensional topological phases and use symmetric circuits for phases with symmetry. We also show that the linear lower bound can be saturated by explicitly constructing circuits generating these topological states. The same results hold for local quantum circuits connecting topological states in different phases.
We study the problem of computing energy density in one-dimensional quantum systems. We show that the ground-state energy per site or per bond can be computed in time (i) independent of the system size and subexponential in the desired precision if the ground state satisfies area laws for the Renyi entanglement entropy (this is the first rigorous formulation of the folklore that area laws imply efficient matrix-product-state algorithms); (ii) independent of the system size and polynomial in the desired precision if the system is gapped. As a by-product, we prove that in the presence of area laws (or even an energy gap) the ground state can be approximated by a positive semidefinite matrix product operator of bond dimension independent of the system size and subpolynomial in the desired precision of local properties.
An area law is proved for the Renyi entanglement entropy of possibly degenerate ground states in one-dimensional gapped quantum systems. Suppose in a chain of $n$ spins the ground states of a local Hamiltonian with energy gap $ε$ are constant-fold degenerate. Then, the Renyi entanglement entropy $R_α(0<α<1)$ of any ground state across any cut is upper bounded by $\tilde O(α^{-3}/ε)$, and any ground state can be well approximated by a matrix product state of subpolynomial bond dimension $2^{\tilde O(ε^{-1/4}\log^{3/4}n)}$.
Entanglement properties of excited eigenstates (or of thermal mixed states) are difficult to study with conventional analytical methods. We approach this problem for random spin chains using a recently developed real-space renormalization group technique for excited states ("RSRG-X"). For the random $XX$ and quantum Ising chains, which have logarithmic divergences in the entanglement entropy of their (infinite-randomness) critical ground states, we show that the entanglement entropy of excited eigenstates retains a logarithmic divergence while the mutual information of thermal mixed states does not. However, in the $XX$ case the coefficient of the logarithmic divergence extends from the universal ground-state value to a universal interval due to the degeneracy of excited eigenstates. These models are noninteracting in the sense of having free-fermion representations, allowing strong numerical checks of our analytical predictions.
We study the computational complexity of quantum discord (a measure of quantum correlation beyond entanglement), and prove that computing quantum discord is NP-complete. Therefore, quantum discord is computationally intractable: the running time of any algorithm for computing quantum discord is believed to grow exponentially with the dimension of the Hilbert space so that computing quantum discord in a quantum system of moderate size is not possible in practice. As by-products, some entanglement measures (namely entanglement cost, entanglement of formation, relative entropy of entanglement, squashed entanglement, classical squashed entanglement, conditional entanglement of mutual information, and broadcast regularization of mutual information) and constrained Holevo capacity are NP-hard/NP-complete to compute. These complexity-theoretic results are directly applicable in common randomness distillation, quantum state merging, entanglement distillation, superdense coding, and quantum teleportation; they may offer significant insights into quantum information processing. Moreover, we prove the NP-completeness of two typical problems: linear optimization over classical states and detecting classical states in a convex set, providing evidence that working with classical states is generically computationally intractable.
We study the scaling of quantum discord (a measure of quantum correlation beyond entanglement) in spin models analytically and systematically. We find that at finite temperature the block scaling of quantum discord satisfies an area law for any two-local Hamiltonian. We show that generically and heuristically the two-site scaling of quantum discord is similar to that of correlation functions. In particular, at zero temperature it decays exponentially and polynomially in gapped and gapless (critical) systems, respectively; at finite temperature it decays exponentially in both gapped and gapless systems. We compute the two-site scaling of quantum discord in the XXZ chain, the XY chain (in a magnetic field), and the transverse field Ising chain at zero temperature.
Quantum discord is a measure of quantum correlation beyond entanglement. Computing quantum discord for simple quantum states is a basic problem. An analytical formula of quantum discord for two-qubit X states is first claimed in [Ali, Rau, and Alber, Phys. Rev. A 81, 042105 (2010)], but later found to be not always correct. I observe numerically that the formula is valid with worst-case absolute error 0.0021. For symmetric two-qubit X states, I give a counterexample to the analytical formula derived in [F. F. Fanchini et al., Phys. Rev. A 81, 052107 (2010)], but observe that the formula is valid with worst-case absolute error 0.0006. The formula has been used in many research papers. The results in all these works are approximately correct, even if they may not be exactly correct.