Lattice QED photonic wavepackets on ladder geometries

In this thesis we explore numerical simulations, including Tensor Networks (TNs) methods, to study Hamiltonian Lattice Gauge Theories (LGTs), a numerical framework for investigating non-perturbative properties of Quantum Field Theories. We develop a model-independent approach for constructing Matrix Product Operators (MPOs) representations of 1-dimensional quasiparticles with definite momenta, and apply it to Hamiltonian Lattice Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) on a ladder geometry. By means of exact diagonalization at intermediate system sizes, we obtain the first excitation band states (the Bloch functions) representing the single-(quasi)particle states (the photons) expressed as entangled states of local lattice gauge fields. We then construct the corresponding maximally-localized Wannier functions through minimization of a spread functional. Once we identify, via a linear algebra problem, the operation that constructs the localized Wannier excitation from the ground state (dressed vacuum), we can express the creation operator, for any wavepacket of such quasiparticles, as a Matrix Product Operator. The aforementioned steps constitute a constructive strategy to prepare an arbitrary input state for a quasiparticle scattering simulation in real time, and the scattering process itself can be carried out with any standard algorithm for time-evolution with Matrix Product States.