Thermal evolution of the one-flavour Schwinger model using matrix product states

Abstract

The Schwinger model, or 1+1 dimensional QED, offers an interesting object of study, both at zero and non-zero temperature, because of its similarities to QCD. In this proceeding, we present the a full calculation of the temperature dependent chiral condensate of this model in the continuum limit using Matrix Product States (MPS). MPS methods, in general tensor networks, constitute a very promising technique for the non-perturbative study of Hamiltonian quantum systems. In the last few years, they have shown their suitability as ansatzes for ground states and low-lying excitations of lattice gauge theories. We show the feasibility of the approach also for finite temperature, both in the massless and in the massive case.