Simulating Quantum Dynamics with Entanglement Mean Field Theory

Abstract

Exactly solvable many-body systems are few and far between, and the utility of approximate methods cannot be overestimated. Entanglement mean field theory is an approximate method to handle such systems. While mean field theories reduce the many-body system to an effective single-body one, entanglement mean field theory reduces it to a two-body system. And in contrast to mean field theories where the self-consistency equations are in terms of single-site physical parameters, those in entanglement mean field theory are in terms of both single- and two-site parameters. Hitherto, the theory has been applied to predict properties of the static states, like ground and thermal states, of many-body systems. Here we give a method to employ it to predict properties of time-evolved states. The predictions are then compared with known results of paradigmatic spin Hamiltonians.