Contracting projected entangled pair states is average-case hard
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This work shows that contraction of tensor networks is average-case hard, which means that the computation of expectation values is on average as hard as for specific configurations of highest computational hardness. This result is a stepping stone to the development of numerical algorithms to simulate strongly correlated quantum matter and at the same time contributes to the body of results on average-case hardness of physically relevant computational problems.
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PEPS exact contraction is #P-complete in general.
“Inference from PEPS representation, or its exact contraction, is known to be a #P -complete problem in general 52,53 .”
From Beyond-classical computation in quantum simulation (2025) · cites this paper as [53]
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Gross, D., & Eisert, J. (2007) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.98.220503 · Cited by 255 · see citing works
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- Authors
- Haferkamp, J., Hangleiter, D., Eisert, J., & Gluza, M.
- Affiliations
- Freie Universität Berlin (DE)
- Venue
- Physical Review Research
- Publisher
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Published
- 2020-01-03
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 1
- ISSN
- 2643-1564 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2892488094
- Cited by
- 62
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 3.05
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Physical Review Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Refubium (Universitätsbibliothek der Freien Universität Berlin) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Universitätsbibliothek der FU Berlin Hochschulschriftenstelle u. Dokumentenserver (cc-by)
- Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (EI 519/14-1, EI 519/7-1, EI 519/15-1, CRC 183 B1)
- European Research Council
- John Templeton Foundation
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics › Quantum many-body systems
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computational Theory and Mathematics › Complexity and Algorithms in Graphs
- Keywords
- projected entangled pair states, tensor network contraction, average-case hardness, computational complexity, strongly correlated quantum matter, quantum simulation, numerical algorithms
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