Glauber dynamics for the quantum Ising model in a transverse field on a regular tree

TL;DR

This paper analyzes Glauber dynamics for the quantum Ising model in a transverse field on finite graphs, establishing monotonicity, extending inequalities to the quantum setting, and proving fast mixing on regular trees using cavity equations.

Contribution

It extends classical Glauber dynamics analysis to the quantum Ising model, introducing new bounds and inequalities in an infinite-dimensional setting.

Findings

Established strict monotonicity of the quantum equilibrium distribution.

Extended the censoring inequality to the quantum context.

Proved fast mixing results for the quantum Ising model on regular trees.

Abstract

Motivated by a recent use of Glauber dynamics for Monte-Carlo simulations of path integral representation of quantum spin models [Krzakala, Rosso, Semerjian, and Zamponi, Phys. Rev. B (2008)], we analyse a natural Glauber dynamics for the quantum Ising model with a transverse field on a finite graph $G$. We establish strict monotonicity properties of the equilibrium distribution and we extend (and improve) the censoring inequality of Peres and Winkler to the quantum setting. Then we consider the case when $G$ is a regular $b$-ary tree and prove the same fast mixing results established in [Martinelli, Sinclair, and Weitz, Comm. Math. Phys. (2004)] for the classical Ising model. Our main tool is an inductive relation between conditional marginals (known as the "cavity equation") together with sharp bounds on the operator norm of the derivative at the stable fixed point. It is here that the main difference between the quantum and the classical case appear, as the cavity equation is formulated here in an infinite dimensional vector space, whereas in the classical case marginals belong to a one-dimensional space.