# 7. Basic MERA Manipulations¶

quimb has preliminary support for the MERA class of states. Specifically, there is the MERA class which constructs a TensorNetwork if supplied with isometries and unitaries.

MERA inherits from TensorNetwork1DVector and TensorNetwork1D and so in fact shares many methods with MatrixProductState.

[1]:

%config InlineBackend.figure_formats = ['svg']
import quimb as qu
import quimb.tensor as qtn


First we create the random MERA state (currently the number of sites n must be a power of 2):

[2]:

n = 128
mera = qtn.MERA.rand_invar(n)


We also can set up some default graphing options, namely, to pin the physical (outer) indices in circle:

[3]:

from math import cos, sin, pi

fix = {
f'k{i}': (sin(2 * pi * i / n), cos(2 * pi * i / n))
for i in range(n)
}

# reduce the 'spring constant' k as well
graph_opts = dict(fix=fix, k=0.01)


By default, the MERA constructor adds the '_ISO' and '_UNI' tensor tags to demark the isometries and unitaries respectively:

[4]:

mera.graph(color=['_UNI', '_ISO'], **graph_opts)


It also tags each layer with '_LAYER2' etc.:

[5]:

mera.graph(color=[f'_LAYER{i}' for i in range(7)], **graph_opts)


Finally, the site-tags of each initial tensor ('I0', 'I1', 'I3', etc.) are propagated up through the isometries and unitaries, forming effective ‘lightcones’ for each site. Here, for example, we plot the lightcone of site 0, 40, and 80:

[6]:

mera.graph(color=['I0', 'I40', 'I80'], **graph_opts)


## 7.1. Computing Local Quantities¶

In a MERA state, local quantities depend only on this lightcone. The way that quimb.tensor works supports this very naturally. Firstly, you can easily select all the tensors with site tag i, i.e. the causal cone, with MERA.select(i):

[7]:

# select all tensors relevant for site-0
mera.select(0).graph(color=[f'_LAYER{i}' for i in range(7)])


Secondly, when combined with its conjugate network, all the dangling indices automatically match up. As an example, consider the state norm, but calculated for site 80 only:

[8]:

nrm80 = mera.select(80).H  & mera.select(80)

[9]:

nrm80.graph(color=[f'_LAYER{i}' for i in range(7)])


We can contract this whole subnetwork efficiently to compute the actual value:

[10]:

nrm80 ^ all

[10]:

1.0000000000000004


As expected. Or consider we want to measure $$\langle \psi | X_i Z_j | \psi \rangle$$:

[11]:

i, j = 50, 100
ij_tags = mera.site_tag(i), mera.site_tag(j)
ij_tags

[11]:

('I50', 'I100')


Now we can select the subnetwork of tensors with either the site 50 or site 100 lightcone (and also conjugate to form $$\langle \psi |$$):

[12]:

mera_ij_H = mera.select(ij_tags, which='any').H


For $$X_i Z_j | \psi \rangle$$ we’ll first apply the X and Z operators. By default the gate operation propagates the site tags to the applied operators as well, or we could use contract=True to actively contract them into the MERA:

[13]:

X = qu.pauli('X')
Z = qu.pauli('X')

XY_mera_ij = (
mera
.gate(X, i)
.gate(Z, j)
.select(ij_tags, which='any')
)


Now we can lazily form the tensor network of this expectation value:

[14]:

exp_XZ_ij = (mera_ij_H & XY_mera_ij)

[15]:

exp_XZ_ij.graph(color=[f'_LAYER{i}' for i in range(7)])


Which we can efficiently contract:

[16]:

exp_XZ_ij ^ all

[16]:

(0.05229297334516415+0j)

[17]:

%%timeit
exp_XZ_ij ^ all

2.43 ms ± 34 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)


## 7.2. Forming a density matrix¶

For some quantities, e.g. entanglement measures, one needs a representation of the density matrix rather than just local operator expectations. We form this by combining a ‘bra’ and ‘ket’ of the MERA, then tracing out an environment. Again, quimb.tensor handles this very naturally, all we need to do is reindex only the physical indices we want to keep on the conjugated state, any that are left will then naturally be contracted, exactly like a partial trace.

Let’s form a density matrix for the first 20 qubits:

[18]:

# generate the 'bra' state
mera_H = mera.H.reindex_sites('b{}', range(20))


We again only need the tensors in the causal cones of these 20 sites:

[19]:

# NB we have to slice *before* combining the subnetworks here.
#    this is because paired indices are mangled when joining
#    two networks -> only dangling indices are guranteed to
#    retain their value
rho = (
mera_H.select(slice(20), which='any') &
mera.select(slice(20), which='any')
)


We can see what this density operator looks like as a tensor network:

[20]:

rho.graph(color=[f'_LAYER{i}' for i in range(7)])


Or we can plot the sites (note that each initial unitary is two sites, and later color tags take precedence, thus the ‘every-other’ coloring effect):

[21]:

rho.graph(color=[f'I{i}' for i in range(20)])


This density matrix is too big to explicitly form (it would need $$2^{40}$$, about a trillion, elements). On the other hand we can treat it as linear operator, in which case we only need to compute its action on a vector of size $$2^{20}$$. This allows the computation of ‘spectral’ quantities of the form $$\text{Tr}(f(\rho)$$.

One such quantity is the entropy $$-\text{Tr} \left( \rho \log_2 \rho \right)$$:

[22]:

# mark the indices as belonging to either the 'left' or
#     'right' hand side of the effective operator
left_ix = [f'k{i}' for i in range(20)]
rght_ix = [f'b{i}' for i in range(20)]

# form the linear operator
rho_ab = rho.aslinearoperator(left_ix, rght_ix, backend='cupy')
rho_ab

[22]:

<1048576x1048576 TNLinearOperator with dtype=float64>


Now we can compute using approx_spectral_function() (note this can be made radically faster if a GPU is available and cupy is installed):

[23]:

f = qu.xlogx
S =  - qu.approx_spectral_function(rho_ab, f, tol=0.02)
print("rho_entropy ~", S)

rho_entropy ~ 5.131795247149012


To compute a genuine entanglement measure we need a further small trick. Specifically, if we are computing the negativity between subsystem A and subsystem B, we can perform the partial transpose simply by swapping subsystem B’s ‘left’ indices for right indices. This creates a linear operator of $$\rho_{AB}^{T_B}$$, which we can compute the logarithmic negativity for, $$\mathcal{E} = \log_2 \text{Tr} |\rho_{AB}^{T_B}|$$:

[24]:

# partition 20 spins in two
sysa = range(0, 10)
sysb = range(10, 20)

# k0, k1, k2, ... b10, b11, b12, ...
left_ix = [f'k{i}' for i in sysa] + [f'b{i}' for i in sysb]
# b0, b1, b2, ... k10, k11, k12, ...
rght_ix = [f'b{i}' for i in sysa] + [f'k{i}' for i in sysb]

rho_ab_pt = rho.aslinearoperator(left_ix, rght_ix, backend='cupy')


Now we just to to take abs as the function $$f$$ and scale the result with $$\log_2$$:

[25]:

f = abs
neg = qu.approx_spectral_function(rho_ab_pt, f, tol=0.02)
print("rho_ab logarithmic negativity ~", qu.log2(neg))

rho_ab logarithmic negativity ~ 1.6435564254777322