Probing universality with entanglement entropy via quantum Monte Carlo

Abstract

Our understanding of physical phenomena hinges on finding universal core mechanisms that unite them. The concept of universality is deeply ingrained in the study of quantum many-body systems. At zero temperature, microscopically different systems with long-range order collapse into their universal state described by a handful of universal parameters. Establishing those parameters implies identification of the universal theory that is effectively describing the system and ultimately providing the desired understanding. We take up this task with the help of Renyi entanglement entropy. Defined with respect to a system bipartition, this measure quantifies information shared between the subsystems. Understanding what insights into universality are encoded within this information-theoretic quantity as well as developing numerical tools to efficiently estimate the Renyi entanglement entropy are the subjects of this thesis.

On the computational end of this far-reaching goal, we develop a novel theoretical framework for constructing improved Renyi entanglement entropy estimators in the context of d+1 quantum Monte Carlo methods. The discovery of a connection of this methodology to the well-established Kandel-Domany formalism provides a clear path towards generalization. Additionally, we embrace a data-driven approach towards learning the ground state wavefunction. We demonstrate how a restricted Boltzmann machine can be used to reconstruct the Renyi entanglement entropy from projective measurements of a quantum ground state. Furthermore, we extend this classical generative architecture to a quantum analogue that we call the quantum Boltzmann machine.

On the theoretical side of this endeavour, we study the Renyi entanglement entropy scaling terms for two quantum lattice models embedded in two dimensional space via extensive quantum Monte Carlo simulations. For the ground state of the XY model, we provide conclusive numerical evidence for a logarithmic contribution that uniquely characterizes the continuous symmetry of the emerging order parameter. Moreover, we confirm the form of the subleading universal geometric contribution arising due to the bosonic nature of low-energy degrees of freedom in this model. For the critical ground state of the transverse field Ising model, we develop a novel scaling procedure to extract a universal number κ revealed via a cylindrical entangling bipartition in the thin-slice limit. The combined product of our work sheds new light on the entanglement-based classification of universality and brings a suite of new powerful numerical tools to continue illuminating this theoretical program in the future.