Real-time scattering of interacting quasiparticles in quantum spin chains

Abstract

We develop a method based on tensor networks to create localized single-particle excitations on top of strongly correlated quantum spin chains. In analogy to the problem of creating localized Wannier modes, this is achieved by optimizing the gauge freedom of momentum excitations on top of matrix product states. The corresponding wave packets propagate almost dispersionlessly. The time-dependent variational principle is used to scatter two such wave packets, and we extract the phase shift from the collision data. We also study reflection and transmission coefficients of a wave packet impinging on an impurity.