Relativistic continuous matrix product states for quantum fields without cutoff

Abstract: I introduce a modification of continuous matrix product states (CMPS) that makes them adapted to relativistic quantum field theories (QFT). These relativistic CMPS can be used to solve genuine 1+1 dimensional QFT without UV cutoff and directly in the thermodynamic limit. The main idea is to work directly in the basis that diagonalizes the free part of the model considered, which allows to fit its short distance behavior exactly. This makes computations slightly less trivial than with standard CMPS. However, they remain feasible and I present all the steps needed for the optimization. The asymptotic cost as a function of the bond dimension remains the same as for standard CMPS. I illustrate the method on the self-interacting scalar field, a.k.a. the $\phi^4_2$ model. Aside from providing unequaled precision in the continuum, the numerical results obtained are truly variational, and thus provide rigorous energy upper bounds.