Gaussian states for the variational study of (1+1)-dimensional lattice gauge models

Abstract

We introduce a variational ansatz based on Gaussian states for (1+1)-dimensional lattice gauge models. To this end we identify a set of unitary transformations which decouple the gauge degrees of freedom from the matter fields. Using our ansatz, we study static aspects as well as real-time dynamics of string breaking in two (1+1)-dimensional theories, namely QED and two-color QCD. We show that our ansatz captures the relevant features and is in excellent agreement with data from numerical calculations with tensor networks.

Comments: 7 pages, 2 figures, proceedings of the 36th Annual International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, 22-28 July, 2018 Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA