2021/11/03 by Angus Kan, Kan, Angus, Lena Funcke +13
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Lattice (hep-lat) #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum many-body systems #Theoretical and Computational Physics
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2111.02238
openalex publication_date 2021/11/03 · openalex created_date 2022/11/08 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Quantum and tensor network simulations have emerged as prominent sign-problem free approaches to lattice gauge theories. Unlike conventional Markov chain Monte Carlo methods, they are based on the Hamiltonian formulation. In this talk, we fill a gap in the literature and present the first derivation of the Hamiltonian 3+1D θ-term -- which is an important sign-problem afflicted term -- for Abelian and non-Abelian lattice gauge theories. Furthermore, we perform exact diagonalization for a 3+1D U(1) lattice gauge theory including the θ-term on a unit periodic cube. Our numerical results reveal a novel phase transition at fixed values of θ in the strong-coupling regime. The transition is evidenced by an avoided level crossing in the ground state energy, as well as sudden changes in the plaquette expectation value, the electric energy density, and the topological charge density. Extensions of our work to larger lattices can be readily performed using state-of-the-art tensor network simulations. Moreover, our work provides a concrete starting point for an eventual quantum simulation of the θ-dependent phase structure and dynamics of lattice gauge theories in 3+1D. This talk is mainly based on [1]. We expand beyond [1] by including a derivation of the (non-)Abelian fixed-length Higgs term in the Hamiltonian formulation for future studies of (non-)Abelian-Higgs models with a θ-term.