Ground-State Spaces of Frustration-Free Hamiltonians

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new framework using reduced spaces to analyze the structure of ground-state spaces in frustration-free Hamiltonians, revealing complex properties and relationships with local Hamiltonian ground states.

Contribution

It develops a mathematical structure for the set of k-particle reduced spaces, including atoms and their properties, enhancing understanding of ground-state spaces in frustration-free Hamiltonians.

Findings

Atoms in $ ext{Theta}_2$ are unique ground states of some 2-local frustration-free Hamiltonians.

Elements in $ ext{Theta}_k$ may not be join of atoms, indicating richer structure.

The study provides a new perspective on ground-state spaces via reduced spaces.

Abstract

We study the ground-state space properties for frustration-free Hamiltonians. We introduce a concept of `reduced spaces' to characterize local structures of ground-state spaces. For a many-body system, we characterize mathematical structures for the set $\Theta_k$ of all the $k$-particle reduced spaces, which with a binary operation called join forms a semilattice that can be interpreted as an abstract convex structure. The smallest nonzero elements in $\Theta_k$, called atoms, are analogs of extreme points. We study the properties of atoms in $\Theta_k$ and discuss its relationship with ground states of $k$-local frustration-free Hamiltonians. For spin-1/2 systems, we show that all the atoms in $\Theta_2$ are unique ground states of some 2-local frustration-free Hamiltonians. Moreover, we show that the elements in $\Theta_k$ may not be the join of atoms, indicating a richer structure for $\Theta_k$ beyond the convex structure. Our study of $\Theta_k$ deepens the understanding of ground-state space properties for frustration-free Hamiltonians, from a new angle of reduced spaces.