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Thomas Barthel

Adjunct Assistant Professor of Physics
Physics
Box 90305, Durham, NC 27708-0305
287 Physics Bldg, Durham, NC 27708

Overview


Theoretical and Numerical Many-Body Physics:

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Adjunct Assistant Professor of Physics · 2025 - Present Physics, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Member of the Duke Quantum Center · 2024 - Present Duke Quantum Center, Pratt School of Engineering

Recent Publications


Absence of Barren Plateaus and Scaling of Gradients in the Energy Optimization of Isometric Tensor Network States

Journal Article Communications in Mathematical Physics · April 1, 2025 Vanishing gradients can pose substantial obstacles for high-dimensional optimization problems. Here we consider energy minimization problems for quantum many-body systems with extensive Hamiltonians and finite-range interactions, which can be studied on cl ... Full text Cite

Scaling of contraction costs for entanglement renormalization algorithms including tensor Trotterization and variational Monte Carlo

Journal Article Physical Review B · January 15, 2025 The multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) is a hierarchical class of tensor network states motivated by the real-space renormalization group. It is used to simulate strongly correlated quantum many-body systems. For prominent MERA structure ... Full text Cite

Convergence and quantum advantage of Trotterized MERA for strongly-correlated systems

Journal Article Quantum · January 1, 2025 Strongly-correlated quantum many-body systems are difficult to study and simulate classically. We recently proposed a variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) based on the multiscale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) with tensors constrained to certa ... Full text Cite
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Education, Training & Certifications


Rheinisch-Westfalische Technische Hochshule Aachen (Germany) · 2009 Ph.D.