English

Local-in-time error in variational quantum dynamics

Quantum Physics 2020-04-22 v1 Chemical Physics Computational Physics

Abstract

The McLachlan "minimum-distance" principle for optimizing approximate solutions of the time-dependent Schrodinger equation is revisited, with a focus on the local-in-time error accompanying the variational solutions. Simple, exact expressions are provided for this error, which are then evaluated in illustrative cases, notably the widely used mean-field approach and the adiabatic quantum molecular dynamics. These findings pave the way for the rigorous development of adaptive schemes that re-size on-the-fly the underlying variational manifold and thus optimize the overall computational cost of a quantum dynamical simulation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1907.00841,
  title  = {Local-in-time error in variational quantum dynamics},
  author = {Rocco Martinazzo and Irene Burghardt},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.00841},
  year   = {2020}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T10:08:51.349Z