Entropy scaling and simulability by Matrix Product States

Norbert Schuch, Michael M. Wolf, Frank Verstraete, J. Ignacio Cirac

Published 2007-05-02, updated 2008-01-30Version 2

We investigate the relation between the scaling of block entropies and the efficient simulability by Matrix Product States (MPS), and clarify the connection both for von Neumann and Renyi entropies (see Table I). Most notably, even states obeying a strict area law for the von Neumann entropy are not necessarily approximable by MPS. We apply these results to illustrate that quantum computers might outperform classical computers in simulating the time evolution of quantum systems, even for completely translational invariant systems subject to a time independent Hamiltonian.