Continuous entanglement renormalization on the circle

Abstract: The continuous multi-scale entanglement renormalization ansatz (cMERA) is a variational class of states for quantum fields. As originally formulated, the cMERA applies to infinite systems only. In this paper we generalize the cMERA formalism to a finite circle, which we achieve by wrapping the action of the so-called entangler around the circle. This allows us to transform a cMERA on the line into a cMERA on the circle. In addition, in the case of a Gaussian cMERA for non-interacting quantum fields, the method of images allow us to prove the following result: if on the line a cMERA state is a good approximation to a ground state of a local QFT Hamiltonian, then (under mild assumptions on their correlation functions) the resulting cMERA on a circle is also a good approximation to the ground state of the same QFT Hamiltonian on the circle.